The Ghost in the Team
by Marcus S. Lazarus
Summary: An amulet in Daniel Jackson's mail results in the SGC gaining a surprising new member, in the form of the 'ghost' of Spike, history's second vampire with a soul. Can he make a difference in the Ori war?
1. Riley's Discovery

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: For the dating system, I'm just ignoring all the dating for _Buffy _and _Angel _and making it that Sunnydale collapsed a few days before the events of this chapter, which, for _Stargate SG-1_, takes place in the early part of Season 10

The Ghost in the Team

Staring at the vast field of rubble and dirt before him, the other members of the clean-up team Buffy had requested from the remnants of the Initiative program after the culmination of the battle with the First Evil, Riley found it hard to believe that he'd once spent almost two years of his life in the town that had stood here before this whole mess happened. He had expected the damage to be great, of course- you couldn't exactly destroy a portal to _Hell _itself without expecting some _serious _damage as a result- but he hadn't exactly expected it to be on quite this _scale_.

_Who'd have thought it_? he mused to himself as he stared at his surroundings, a grim expression on his face as he tried to pick out where the university had once stood. It was a foolish thing to be nostalgic for, he knew- he'd been brainwashed and nearly _died _as a result of their experiments on him- but, as bad as his memories of it had been at the end, the Initiative had been the whole reason he'd come to Sunnydale in the first place. No matter how dark a time it had been for him in his life, he didn't like to think that something that had played such an important part in his development as a person should be reduced to just a pile of unidentifiable rubble.

Even if it had culminated in the (At least temporary) destruction of something that- according to Buffy- was the First Evil in all of _existence_, it still seemed to be a pretty big sacrifice to him. All those people who'd lost their homes… their livelihoods… maybe even their relatives… when the town had finally collapsed, preceeded by the First's minions stalking the city in an attempt to eliminate the Slayers-in-training… it really got to him.

This was why he'd never accepted that offer to transfer to the so-called 'Stargate program' after he'd left the Initiative. He'd been approached by the commander of the base at the time- a General George Hammond of the USAF, he recalled- shortly after his first departure from Sunnydale, given a briefing on the program and asked to participate, before being left with the necessary forms to sign to determine whether or not he'd accept the position and given a few days to consider it.

If he was being honest with himself, Riley had to admit that the offer had been a tempting one. He'd been experienced enough at dealing with strange phenomenon to probably rate command of his own SG team when he got there- he may have only been a Captain, but the stuff he'd encountered more than made up for his lack of an _official _rank- and he could have even been allowed to choose what planets he visited to avoid having too much pressure stuck on him all at once.

In the end, however, when the deadline came to respond to the forms, he'd decided not to do anything and left the forms unsigned, baring the form for the disclosure act that prevented him discussing the SGC with anybody not already in the know. There may not have been that much difference between demons and aliens- both were non-human life forms who generally seemed to treat humans the way humans treated cows or pigs, as just something that was there to keep them alive- but, as far as Riley could see, there was at least _one _specific difference.

If nothing else, at least demons typically operated on a smaller scale than aliens did. It was hard fighting either, but at least when you lost against demons, they only killed the immediate attackers, and, in the majority of cases, even the worst demons only wanted to kill _thousands _of people in a certain area; big numbers, but within Riley's mental limits anyway.

The kind of enemies the Stargate program dealt with on a regular basis… Riley had heard a rumour that one of their foes had once wiped out an entire _planet_ just for allowing Earth to set up an observatory on their world to monitor a nearby black hole, and they hadn't even _met _that particular foe yet.

He didn't want to have to deal with that kind of thing on a regular basis. Demons were brutal, but at least if he failed in most cases, he'd only have to worry about his unit dying. With the loss of the Hellmouth, one of the easiest ways of triggering the destruction of Earth no longer existed, and, in any case, most demons were more interested in killing smaller groups of people rather than destroying the _world_ itself.

The lives of people in terms of three to six-digit numbers, Riley could handle; he'd proved that to himself often enough, such as when the gang had been forced to stop Adam from unleashing a zombie army on Sunnydale from the Initiative. The people who would have died if they'd escaped onto Sunnydale were a problem, but at least they probably wouldn't have made it out of Sunnydale without the military managing to stop them, even if it _would _have been with something like a tactical nuclear strike.

But when you increased those numbers to incorporate the population of entire _planets_… well, he wasn't sure that he could have done it, particularly not on a regular basis. The occasional apocalypse he'd dealt with while he'd been part of the gang had been more than enough for him; indeed, it was part of the reason he'd been thinking of leaving the city even before he and Buffy had those… problems with the vampires (Much as he hated to think about that time of his life). If the SGC ever needed help in an attack on Earth or something like that, he'd be prepared to oblige and help out, but he wasn't sure if he was capable of coping with the kind of stress the SG teams had to handle on a long-term basis.

No, it was best if he just kept doing what he was doing at the moment, doing what he knew he was good at, continuing-

Wait.

His eyes widened slightly as he saw something gleam underneath a pile of rubble nearby. Curiously, he walked towards the gleam, taking care to keep one hand near his weapons. The Hellmouth itself may have at last been closed, but he was uncomfortably close to the very centre of the pit that had replaced Sunnydale, and didn't want to take the chance that something may have decided to hide at the heart of the destruction to wait its chance to strike back. His hand hovering anxiously over his gun, Riley slowly moved towards the source of the gleam, relaxing slightly as he saw that, whatever it was, it wasn't particularly large, so he doubted it would actually do anything to him. As he reached out to it, he noticed that it didn't appear to be glowing any more strongly as he got closer to it, suggesting that at least it didn't react to his presence. Reaching out, he brushed some of the dust off, took hold of the object in question, and then lifted it up to study the object closer.

It was a large gem of unknown type, a clear colour with a faint orange glow in the centre- presumably the source of the gleam he'd seen originally- hanging on a simple gold-coloured chain made up of numerous links. The gem itself was surrounded by grey links, consisting of both thin silverish 'wires' and a similar design to those that formed the chain around the neck, some unknown writing around the edges of the metal, but, apart from the fact that it was at the centre of this total mass of destruction, it didn't seem to be all that threatening.

_Wait a minute_… Riley thought to himself, as he strained his mind to recall what details Buffy had given him about the recent destruction of Sunnydale and the weakening of the First. If he recalled the information he'd been given correctly, in the final battle with those 'Turok-Han' (Or Uber-vamps, as he recalled somebody describing them), Spike had used an amulet that Buffy had apparently acquired from Angel to trigger some kind of… chain reaction in the Turok-Han. As a result, the entire Turok-Han army had been totally incinerated thanks to Spike exposing _himself _to the sunlight, spreading the energy from Spike to the other vampires, before the entire Hellmouth collapsed from exposure to the energy that had been collected and focused by the amulet…

And, at the same time, Riley now recalled, had severely crippled- if not actually _destroyed_; it was rather unclear what had happened- the First Evil… a non-corporeal life form that had been around since at least the beginning of the Universe.

_A non-corporeal life form_…

Much like what he'd heard was presently being faced by the Stargate Program.

Admittedly, the reports he'd heard seemed to indicate that _these _beings had been human once, but they were still beings who lacked an actual _body _and still managed to have some influence on the world.

If this amulet had managed to defeat a non-corporeal being who'd been around since the beginning the universe, and had literally been the _personification _of evil, maybe it could help the SGC work out a means of dealing with these 'Ori' things they were facing at the moment. He may not want to have to actually deal with those things himself, but those men and women who _were _capable of coping with everything that the universe had to throw at them… well, if he could help them out, he felt like he had a responsibility to do so.

It was like back when he'd initially lost his strength when he was working with Buffy, or a conversation he once had with Xander shortly before he left Sunnydale; you didn't help out in the fight against evil because you wanted recognition, but because it was the right thing to do. He wasn't going to ask _for _anything by giving the SGC access to this amulet; he could only hope that, in some way, his actions made a difference in the current war against the Ori.

_Well then_, he said, smiling slightly as he studied the amulet in his hand, _I guess you're going off to Colorado then._

Even as he turned away from the centre of the destruction and began to walk back towards the location of the clean-up crew's assorted trucks, he didn't spare much thought as to the reason for the strange glow that still surrounded the amulet; he just put it down as part of the object's powers and left it at that.

He could never have suspected that, by sending that amulet to the SGC, he would be giving the Stargate Program access to more than just a potential weapon against the Ori, but a new member of the organisation who would go on to change a great deal in the Ori war…


	2. The Amulet

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: This chapter, which take place between 'Uninvited' and '200' for _SG-1_, is exactly nineteen days after Sunnydale collapsed, just after Daniel's returned from England, where he's been researching information on Merlin and Morgan le Fay to try and find information about Merlin's anti-Ori weapon

The Ghost in the Team

As he strode back into his office following his recent research mission in England- a mission that, much to his annoyance, had failed to turn up _anything _useful to help them track Merlin's Anti-Ori Weapon- Daniel Jackson sighed in frustration as he saw the mail that had piled up on his desk during his absence.

There were times, he had to admit, when it felt as though paperwork was one of the few universal constants. In any society advanced enough to pose a threat to the Goa'uld or the Ori, but not yet advanced to the level of, say, the Ancients or the Asgard, there would always be paperwork of some kind to deal with, there would always be at least one idiot who wanted to acquire more power than he actually deserved to hold, and there would _always _some people who disagreed about how to use what they had for the good of the majority.

He was never entirely sure which one of the three was the most annoying, he had to admit; the latter two were definitely problematic, but the sheer amount of paperwork he had these days sometimes made him want to shoot himself. If he'd ever needed _another _reason to get frustrated at Vala's presence, it was the fact that her constant attempts to turn everything into a romantic encounter cut into the time he had available to deal with the paperwork for his department- and he didn't have that much time for it to start with.

Still, all in all, it didn't look like it was anything too bad awaiting him this time around; the staff in the department often went through his mail while he was away, removing any junk mail and leaving him with only those things that didn't look _immediately _important and seemed to be interesting (If bills came, of course, they sometimes offered to cover them themselves, a fact for which he was always grateful even if he always ended up giving them the money as soon as he learned about the bills). Shrugging off his remaining frustration at his inability to find anything useful in England or in Merlin's library on Camelot, Daniel sat down at his desk and began to study the paperwork.

It was at moments like this that he sometimes wondered how things would have gone if he'd accepted that job offer a couple of years before he joined the Stargate program. The man who'd approached him- a 'Quentin Travers', he recalled the name had been- hadn't really given him much information about the organisation he called the 'Watchers' Council', but had told Daniel that it had access to a great deal of knowledge that most of the world had no idea even existed; the chances were good that they might have had something about Merlin and Morgan le Fay that would have helped his current problem.

At the time, of course, Daniel had just rejected the job offer, politely but firmly making it clear that he wasn't interested in working with the 'Council'. He'd been tempted by the possibilities the job seemed to include according to Travers' description, of course- what archaeologist wouldn't have been interested in access to historical knowledge?- but when he'd learned that he wouldn't be able to tell anyone _outside _the 'Council' about the knowledge in question, he'd turned the offer down. As far as he was concerned, if knowledge couldn't be shared with the rest of the world, there wasn't much point in having access to it, and he refused to join an organisation that actively encouraged the _suppression _of knowledge.

OK, so the knowledge he gained in the Stargate program wasn't exactly accessible to the general public, but at least it was being used by _some _people to improve Earth, even if it was mostly in secret; nothing Travers had told him suggested the Watchers' Council did _anything _with their information other than keep an eye on it. After all, it was thanks to the knowledge gained on their travels through the Stargate that Earth had acquired the knowledge and technology that enabled their scientists to construct such ships as the _Prometheus _and the _Daedelus_, to say nothing of the F-302s and their predecessors.

The information gained by the Stargate may not be public _yet_, but at least it was being used, no matter that its use was secret, to help the world. Besides, whatever else happened, Daniel could be quietly confident that, some day, the knowledge gained by the Stargate would be available for all to use. Maybe not any day _soon_- the threat the Ori posed to the galaxy was still a prominent issue, and it would hardly be a good idea to expose humanity as a whole to the knowledge that a bunch of beings on the higher planes of reality were trying to conquer the galaxy- but, maybe after the Ori were gone…

Well, he was part of the Stargate Program rather than the Watcher's Council now, and he couldn't start wishing that things had turned out differently. The situation was as it was; he'd just have to make do with the resources he had available to him and hope for the best.

It was about half way through the pile that Daniel came across a particularly intriguing-looking piece of mail. It was a relatively large brown envelope with a distinctive bulge in the centre, as though it was holding something large, with the table on the front saying simply "Dr Daniel Jackson, C/O Stargate Command". Attached to the envelope was a smaller, white envelope, held onto the main package with sellotape, and "PRIVATE- for the eyes of DOCTOR JACKSON ONLY" written on one side in thick black pen. Attached to the envelope was a Post-it note from one of his staff, saying "Found under your door while you were gone; scans show only a disc-shaped artefact; seems to be harmless; nothing remarkable about the letter; left for you to open."

His curiosity piqued, Daniel pulled the white envelope off the main package and, picking up the letter opener, tore it open and, standing up and walking around to the front of the desk to get better access to the main light, began to read the hastily scribbled letter; evidently, whoever had written it had been somewhat pressed for time for some reason, making the writing rather hard to read if he was just sitting on his desk (His reading lamp had apparently been broken during that incident with Ba'al's clones while he'd been away).

_To Dr Jackson_

_We have never met, but I have heard much of you and your colleagues on SG-1; I was once approached about a position in the SGC, but declined for personal reasons. However, I have kept up-to-date with the files on your project, and retain the necessary security clearance to regularly access any information on the threats currently faced by your Program. _

_On a recent clean-up mission, I have discovered something that I believe may prove beneficial to you in your current crisis. Should you seek further information regarding the contents of this package, contact the NID and ask for the contact details of Agent R Finn, formerly of the DRI; I will be available to answer any questions you may have._

_Sincerely,_

_R Finn_.

_The DRI_? Daniel asked himself, raising a puzzled eyebrow as he stared at the writing before him. _What's that all about_?

He vaguely recalled reading something about the DRI in one of the files that had been received about the NID- it was some kind of sub-division of the NID, relegated to their command despite the fact that they'd been around since World War Two, the reasoning being something about the threats the NID had to deal with being more immediate problems than what was regularly tackled by the DRI- but he couldn't recall what the name stood for, nor what their connection had been to the NID. He couldn't even remember what it was that the DRI had been created to deal with in the first place; he couldn't even be sure that the original file he'd read about their existence had even _said _what the DRI were created to investigate in the _first_ place.

* * *

AN: Should anyone wish clarification, the DRI- Demon Research Initiative- was the original name for the Initiative (The demon-hunting organisation that featured heavily in Season 4 of _Buffy_) when it was set up during World War Two, as revealed in the _Angel _episode 'Why We Fight' during flashbacks to a time when Angel was forcible recruited by the group to recover a sunken German U-boat that had been stolen by American forces; as a vampire, he was the only person who could cope with the conditions that far down under the sea. I'm assuming that 'Demon Research Initiative' is still its full, official name in the government on paper, but people generally shortened it to 'the Initiative' because it was cooler than just DRI (After all, it _could _prompt a selection of bad jokes about drivers, when you think about it).

* * *

Still, he couldn't deny that the information in the letter added to his curiosity about the contents of the main envelope. If this 'R Finn' had indeed kept up-to-date with information on the problem that currently faced the Stargate program, and at least _thought_ that he'd discovered something that could help them against the Ori, they were in no position to turn down even the slightest chance of an advantage. Even if it turned out to be nothing, it could help point them in the right direction to find out something more about how to battle the Ori; given their present inability to discover _anything _about Merlin's Anti-Ori weapon, _any _kind of progress would be good right about now.

Picking up the letter opener once again, Daniel picked up the envelope and sliced it cleanly open, tilting it upside down as he moved one hand underneath the envelope to catch the contents. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten to remove the letter-opener from his other hand, and, as a result, when he attempted to catch the contents of the envelope as it fell into his hand- an amulet with an unknown gem in the centre, apparently meant to be worn around the neck, with writing around it that he couldn't quite make out- he wasn't able to catch it due to the brief surprise caused by the letter-opener's presence, and ended up dropping both objects onto the floor.

Sighing slightly at his own clumsiness- it reminded him too much of the early days before Jack and Sam had managed to give him some lessons in using guns at sort notice, when he'd worried about being a liability on SG-1's missions in a fight- Daniel moved to pick it up, but stopped as the amulet suddenly began to glow a brilliant orange colour. As soon as he'd registered the glow in question, Daniel backed up anxiously as fast as he could go; in his experience, any time a gem-like object glowed, somebody was inevitably meant to get hurt somehow, and he'd rather not find out what _this _'gem' was meant to do first-hand.

He'd only just made it to the door, his eyes fixed on the amulet all the while in case something happened, when suddenly a miniature… _tornado _was the only word he could find, even if the mental image conjured up by that word was of something much larger… of black particles appeared above the amulet, swirling rapidly around as the remaining papers on his desk shook and rustled as though the wind had suddenly picked up _inside _his office.

As Daniel stared at the tornado before him in confusion, the papers and remaining envelopes on his desk caught up in the disturbance it had created, the energy in question began to dissipate, revealing what started out as a badly burned human skeleton before it literally seemed to _heal _itself. Before Daniel's eyes, the skeleton's flesh began to knit itself back together, its muscles bulging out as they returned to full health, clothes spreading out to cover the flesh as the body beneath them became healthy once again, a loud scream of pain suddenly mixing in with the noise caused by the tornado itself as the process reached a point where the subject's vocal chords could work once again.

Finally, the scream faded as the process seemed to complete itself, revealing the healthy form of a fully-grown human male, apparently in his mid to late twenties. The man was dressed in a long leather coat that came down to around his knees, dark trousers, and a tight black T-shirt. His hair was an unnaturally pale shade, almost white, and slicked back, and a small scar adorned his left eyebrow. As soon as his last injury had healed itself- a rather unpleasant-looking _hole _in his right cheek- the man stopped screaming and leaned forward, seemingly gasping for breath as he stared around himself in confusion and shock.

"Uh… hello?" Daniel said, after a moment's pause had made it clear that his strangely-arrived visitor wasn't going to start a conversation at the moment.

Apparently only just realising that there was somebody else in the room with him, the man looked up at Daniel in confusion, shock evident on his face as he stared at the archaeologist.

"Wh-what the _bloody hell _happened to me?" he said, looking at Daniel in an almost imploring manner; a part of Daniel noted the speaker's lower-class British accent with no small amount of surprise, but decided now wasn't the time to ask about it. "A-And who the _hell _are _you_?"

"Uh… I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson," Daniel replied, trying to look as though he had at least _some _control over the situation currently facing him, rather than being just as in the dark as the man seemed to be. "I received an envelope with an amulet in it, and when I opened it… well, you appeared."

Remembering the letter that had accompanied the package in question, Daniel decided to try another line of enquiry just in case. "Just to make sure… you wouldn't happen to know an 'R Finn', would you?"

"_Finn_?" the man yelled, staring incredulously at Daniel, his initial confusion now apparently replaced with anger. "You saying _Captain Cornfed_ did this to me? That bloody-!"

"No, I only asked because-" Daniel began, but he and the man both stopped at the shock of what happened next; in his sudden rage, the man had lashed out at the nearest object in the room- one of the chairs Daniel kept in his office- with a powerful kick, and his leg had just passed right _through _the chair.

Daniel and the man both blinked in surprise at that, silence reigning in the room for a moment before the man looked up at Daniel in shock and confusion.

"Bugger," he said, his voice low as he walked over to the chair to stand- literally- _in _it, staring at the place where his legs passed through the chair as though waiting for them to become solid or wanting some kind of evidence that this wasn't _actually _happening. When nothing showed signs of happening, the man look back at Daniel, an almost scared expression on his face as he wrapped his arms around himself in an almost pathetic-looking self-hug.

"Am- am I in Hell?" he whispered, his eyes wide and pleading in a manner that almost reminded Daniel of the look he'd seen in the mirror shortly after his parents had died.

He was grateful that, in this instance, he was able to give this man- whoever he was- the answer that he _wanted _to hear.

"Uh… no," he said, shaking his head. He nearly raised his arm to give the man a reassuring pat on the shoulder, but stopped himself in time; having his hand go _through _this guy right now wouldn't do anything to help the situation they were in right now. "Generally, there's meant to be more fire and brimstone- if Sokar's attempts to create his own version were anything like the reality of it, that is."

"Uh… what?" the man said, staring at Daniel in confusion. "Sokar? What are you talking about?"

Daniel cursed slightly at his own foolishness; he'd grown so used to people in the SGC already _knowing _about the Goa'uld that he'd forgotten that this man wasn't a normal visitor and had apparently _no _idea what the Stargate was. Sighing, he took a deep breath, looked at the man uncertainly for a moment or two, and then nodded in quiet resolution.

"Look, could you just… come with me?" he said, indicating the door to his office in a slightly hesitant manner. "It's just… well, I'm as confused about all this as you are, trust me… but I think I know someone who might be able to help figure out what's… well, what happened to you."

The man looked uncertainly at Daniel for a moment, as though trying to decide whether he could trust the man before him or not, prompting Daniel to continue speaking. "I'll try and answer any questions you have about… well, where you are and how you got here… but I think we'd _both _prefer to know the _how _and _why _of whatever happened to you before we have to deal with those issues."

The man simply continued to stare at him for a moment, and then, after a few moments of hesitation, nodded grimly.

"All right, fine," he said, nodding grimly as he studied the office once more before heading for the door. "After all, I'm not going to bloody well drop in on Buffy before I can say what the sodding hell's _happened _to me after that whole bloody mess…"

Whether more was said after that, Daniel couldn't be sure, as it was during that sentence that the man walked _through _his door- literally _through _the door; he'd shut it when he'd originally entered his office- and, as a result, what else he might have said was unknown to Daniel. Sighing slightly, Daniel opened his door and, after quickly glancing around, saw the 'man' walking down another corridor. After making sure there was nobody around he needed to explain the man's presence to at the moment, Daniel hurried after his spectral visitor, slowing down as he finally caught up with the non-corporeal blond.

"Uh… who's Buffy?" he asked, looking curiously at the amulet's apparent 'passenger' as the two men fell into step; the man still seemed to be moving slightly faster than Daniel, but he nevertheless seemed content to follow Daniel's lead.

"Love of my un-life," the leather-clad man replied simply, looking at the archaeologist with an expression that made it clear he wasn't going to answer any further questions about the matter.

Of course, Daniel wasn't going to leave it at that for long- if nothing else, he wouldn't mind knowing what his strangely intangible visitor meant by the phrase '_un-life_'- but, for the moment, he was prepared to leave it and focus on the more immediate matter of working out what had _happened _to the man to leave him in this condition in the first place.

Still, his words _definitely _left Daniel with something to think about…


	3. Introductions and Scans

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Regarding how long Spike says he's been the amulet, please remember that I've twisted the dating system of _Buffy_ and _SG-1 _so that Season 7 of _Buffy _ended approximately while SG-1 were visiting Atlantis; the 'nineteen day' thing may have nothing to do with Spike coming out of the amulet when he did, but I'd rather be 'safe' than 'sorry' (For lack of a better expression)

The Ghost in the Team

Sam was in the middle of her current experiments to improve the device that Mitchell still referred to as the 'Anti-Prior Gun'- with the recent coming of the so-called 'Orici', Sam had no doubt that the SGC could use every advantage they could get right now- when the door to her office opened and Daniel walked in, looking over at her apologetically as he did so.

"Daniel, hi," she said, looking up at him with a slight smile on her face; after the weeks he'd spent away trying to find out anything useful on Merlin or Morgan le Fay, it was a welcome relief for her to see her friend again. For a moment, she thought he'd just dropped in to see her, then she took in the serious-yet-apologetic expression on his face and her hopes of a leisurely visit were dashed; Daniel only ever assumed that particular look when he had discovered something he needed her help with but simultaneously wasn't sure if he should be interrupting her about it.

"What's wrong?" she asked, looking anxiously at her friend.

"Well… it's kind of hard to explain; it's easier if I just show you," Daniel explained, before he glanced behind himself to look back at the door he'd just entered by. "Come on in."

Sam's eyes widened in surprise as, right in front of her, a man literally walked _through _the wall beside the door, staring ahead of himself with an almost sulky expression on his face as he entered the room, hands shoved in his pockets as he stared at his surroundings.

"Not a bad set-up you've got going here," he said, in a British accent that Sam hadn't expected from a man dressed in a manner that wouldn't have been out of place in a biker's bar, before he turned to look directly at Sam. "By the way, you are?"

"Uh… I'm Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, of the United States Air Force" Sam said, looking at the man in confusion as she glanced over at Daniel. "Who is this, and… well, how could he do… _that_?" she added, indicating the area of the wall that this man had just walked _through_.

Daniel shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine," he said, as he indicated the man in question. "I was just going through my mail when I found this one package containing an amulet of some kind. I opened it, and… well, this man here just seemed to come out of it-"

"Wait; it was the sodding _amulet_ that did this?" the man said, spinning around to stare incredulously at the two of them. "I don't bloody _believe _it; why the _Hell _did I agree to _wear _that _stupid _thing…?"

Sam and Daniel exchanged puzzled looks at that, but, unable to provide an answer to either of the two questions just asked by their spectral visitor, Sam sighed and shrugged uncertainly as she looked back at him.

"Well… seeing as how you came _out _of the 'amulet' that Daniel mentioned, it seems like a good guess that it was involved in… whatever did this to you," she said, indicating where his leg and thigh were currently standing _in _her desk. "Look, we'll try to answer your questions if we can, but, in the meantime, could you just wait a minute while I find my equipment? If we can figure out _why _you're… like this… we might be able to work out a means of reversing it; we've got… well, experience… in this kind of thing."

"Wait a minute; you've encountered somebody who's like this _before_?" the man said, staring at the two of them with renewed intensity, the edges of his mouth pulled back as though he was preparing to growl at them but was uncertain .

Exchanging an uncertain glance with Daniel, Sam knew that her friend was thinking pretty much the same thing that she was at this moment. Normally in this kind of situation- namely, _any _situation where somebody outside the military or SGC discovered the existence of the Stargate facility or got inside without them knowing it- their policy was to remain silent about any alien encounters or technology they'd acquired over the last decade or so and act as though they knew nothing.

However, given that this man was currently standing _in _Sam's desk- his legs were totally concealed by the lower part of the desk- staring at the lab around him with an expression that reminded Sam of Daniel's expression when he was about to jump from a great height for some reason- an expression that suggested he was _sure_ that something would go wrong on an instinctive level no matter how safe he seemed- it seemed like a safe guess that he already knew that there was more to the world than was known to the general public.

Exactly _how _he knew that, Sam didn't know and wouldn't like to guess at the moment, but, so long as she avoided specifically mentioning _aliens_ for the moment, she supposed she might be able to get through this without giving their strange visitor any important information about the reason for what the SGC was actually here to do.

"Well… yes, we have," Sam said, she and Daniel exchanging glances once more before Sam moved off to fetch some instruments from a cupboard while Daniel continued to study their visitor uncertainly. "I mean, it's been a while, but we were once attacked by a race that existed _totally _out of phase with us, allowing them to pass through objects like you; the only difference was that they were invisible, whereas you're clearly visible."

Daniel nodded in agreement as he looked at their visitor. "Trust me; you're one up on me at least," he said. As the man looked over at him in surprise, Daniel smiled slightly. "I was once rendered intangible _and _invisible myself; the only reason I'm not still like that is that we made contact with… someone… who'd been through the same thing and could thus communicate with me." Still smiling, he indicated Sam as she continued to search for her scanner. "Actually, Sam and I went through another experience like that only last year; the only difference was that then we actually had access to the device that caused it, and the only real difficulty lay in working out _how _to reverse what the device had done."

"Ah," the man said, looking at Daniel quizzically for a moment before continuing to speak. "So, seeing as you're clearly _not _ghosts nowadays, you must have managed to reverse it _then_… think you could use those old tricks to give me _my _body back this time around?"

"That's why we're doing this; to determine if that would actually be possible," Sam put in, her face lighting up hopefully as she began to check yet another drawer. "For all we know, your kind of intangibility could operate in a totally different manner from our own; if nothing else, we can actually _see_ you, whereas all our previous experiences with this kind of thing also made the person who'd become intangible totally invisible to everyone else."

"I… see…" the man said, nodding in a brief, thoughtful manner before he turned to look inquiringly in Daniel's direction. "By the way, what does Captain Cornfed have to do with this whole set-up?"

"Who?" Sam asked, looking curiously up at the man as she pulled out a couple of scanners and began to run them over Spike as he stood in the middle of the room.

"The guy who you said sent that amulet to this place," the man said, continuing to look inquiringly over in Daniel's direction as Sam began to study the scanner's readout from its analysis of the man's 'physiology' (If it could be called that, given that he didn't have an actual body). "You know, you asked me if I knew him before we found out I'm not solid any more?"

"Oh, you mean that 'R Finn'?" Daniel said, looking over at Sam in a slightly apologetic manner as he indicated the man. "The package containing the amulet included a letter from someone called 'R Finn', explaining that he was the one who'd sent it to me because he thought that it might be useful to us; our… guest… recognised the name."

"Why shouldn't I?" the man said, glancing over critically at Daniel as Sam ran the scanner over him. "Stupid sod sent a couple of years working with me and the others back on good old Sunny-D; if he hadn't had such an inferiority complex when it came to _anything_ relating to Peaches, he'd probably still have been there."

As she ran the scanner over the man, Sam exchanged an inquiringly glance with Daniel, who shook his head apologetically in answer to her unasked question; he didn't know anything more about their strange visitor than she'd already heard, and what had just been said made just as much sense to him as it had to her.

"Look, we'll do what we can to answer _that _question later; right now we have more immediate matters to attend to," Daniel said, looking back at the man as Sam continued to walk around him, studying the scanner in her hands. "For example, as long as you're here, could you possibly tell us your name? You already know mine and Sam's, and you know that we're going to do everything we can to try and help you; we should at least know what to call you."

It was at moments like this, in his opinion, that Daniel was almost grateful that Jack O'Neill was no longer a part of SG-1. Oh, he missed his friend greatly, and he'd never try to pretend otherwise, but he definitely _didn't _miss Jack's frustration at his occasional violations of the confidentiality clause in his contract. Admittedly, Jack had always understood the _why _of it, and knew that Daniel didn't do that sort of thing lightly, but it had still frustrated him at times.

For a time, Daniel thought that the man wasn't going to reply, as he remained staring at Daniel with an expression that reminded Daniel of the looks he'd received during the first Abydos mission; a look that made it clear that the man strongly doubted that Daniel could do _anything _useful in the current situation…

Then the man grimaced and shrugged.

"I'm Spike," he said simply, looking at them as though daring them to make a comment about the oddness of his name.

Before Sam or Daniel could say anything about their visitor's rather 'odd'- to say the least- name, the door to the lab opened.

* * *

"Hey, Sam?" Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell said as he walked into the room, Teal'c and Vala close behind him. "Sorry to bother, but we were wondering…" he began to say, only to stop as he took in the bizarre sight of a strange man dressed in a long black leather coat with nearly white hair standing in the middle of the room as Sam ran a scanner over him, Daniel standing off to the side as he turned around to look at the new arrivals. His position suggested that he'd been talking to the unknown man before the others had arrived, but that didn't answer any of Mitchell's other questions about who the man was and what he was doing here.

"What is this man doing here?" Teal'c asked, voicing the opinion of his new commanding officer as he looked quizzically at the new arrival.

"Well, that's actually what we're trying to figure out," Sam said, as she turned to look fully at her teammates. "Daniel received this amulet in the mail this morning from someone called 'R Finn'- a former member of this group called the DRI who were involved in the creation of the NID, apparently- and when he opened it…"

She shrugged in an apologetic manner as she indicated the man. "Well, this man showed up."

"Really?" Vala said, looking the man over with an appreciative gleam in her eyes as she walked forward slightly. "Well, I have to admit, this _is _a welcome surprise…"

"Excuse me?" the man said, turning to look at Vala (Mitchell vaguely noted that the man had a faint scar above his left eyebrow, and wondered what had put that there).

"Oh, come _on_," Vala said, grinning at the man in a coy manner as she began to walk towards him, "you can't honestly tell me that you can't at least _guess _what I'm talking abo- HEY!" she yelled in surprise; she'd just reached out one hand, as though to place it on the man's arm, and her entire hand had passed right _through_ the man as though he wasn't there.

Not that Mitchell could blame her, of course; he definitely hadn't been expecting _that_.

"What the…?" he said, glancing over at Sam and Daniel in confusion. "Did something happen with that device of Merlin's again or something?"

Daniel shook his head. "Unfortunately not; Spike here-" he jerked a thumb at the man in question before he continued talking, "basically _arrived _here like this."

"Indeed," Teal'c said, looking the man who was apparently called 'Spike' up and down with a raised eyebrow as he took in what Daniel had said to him, that critical gleam in his eyes making it clear that he was assessing Spike's potential threat in a combat situation.

_It's true what they say_, Mitchell thought to himself with a small smile. _You can take the Jaffa out of the First Prime, but you can't take the First Prime out of the Jaffa…_

"Bloody hell…" Spike muttered to himself, his eyes fixed on the gold symbol on Teal'c's forehead before he shifted his gaze to Teal'c's eyes. "What's with the symbol, buddy?"

"It is a religious symbol of my people," Teal'c replied, folding his arms as he stared back at Spike, his expression that familiar blank look that left it hard for even the other members of SG-1 to know what he was thinking. "It and similar symbols were once placed on the heads of both men and women, but in recent times such a practice has fallen out of practice."

"Really?" Spike said, tilting his head critically to one side to study the Apophis logo on Teal'c's head, before he shrugged casually. "Well, at least it's something new."

"Talking of things being _new_," Mitchell put in, looking critically over at Sam as he spoke, "what's the new guy doing here anyway?"

"Sam was running some tests on him to see if we could learn anything more about _how _he's intangible," Daniel explained, as he turned to look inquiringly at the woman in question, who was currently looking at the readings on her scanner with a critical eye. "Anything encouraging?"

"Well, so far, I haven't really got much," Sam said, as she looked over at Spike apologetically before indicating her scanner. "All I can gather with my equipment is that you're definitely generating some kind of electromagnetic energy- fortunately not enough to interfere with anything on the base," she added, noticing Mitchell's concerned expression before continuing. "Also, you're radiating heat- it's significantly less than the average human, but you've definitely got a temperature of some kind- and I'm detecting brain activity."

"Really?" Spike said, glancing over at Sam with a small smile on his face. "Guess that shows the One-Eyed Man for calling me stupid, then."

"Who?" Mitchell asked, looking inquiringly at the strange figure who was currently standing in the middle of Sam's desk, his thigh and left hand passing through her keyboard.

"Just somebody I knew," Spike said simply, turning briefly to look in Mitchell's direction before glancing back at Sam. "So, now that you've got all the fine details recorded, any chance we can get on with solidifying me again?"

Looking at the information before her once more, Sam shook her head after taking a moment or two to think about what she'd uncovered.

"Sorry; it's not going to be as straightforward as all that," she said apologetically as she looked back at Spike. "These readings don't match anything we have on file about intangible beings; you're visible when we were always _in_visible, you're giving off electromagnetic energy unlike any frequencies I've seen before, and you actually have some kind of _temperature_…"

She sighed slightly as she put the scanner away before looking back at Spike. "If it's any consolation, the scans seem to indicate that you're more… well, 'in touch' is the best term I can come up with… with the rest of the world than some of the intangible beings we've encountered; they were always _totally _out of phase with reality, but you're only a few 'degrees'- for lack of a better term- displaced from the rest of us. If you concentrate enough, it's possible that you might be able to exert some kind of influence over objects in your immediate vicinity- a kind of 'mind over matter' situation, if you will."

Spike raised a thoughtful eyebrow at Sam as he turned to look at her, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"So… what; you think I can touch stuff?" he said, waving a hand through a nearby tap as he looked critically at her. "I'm not seeing much in the way of _that _happening right now."

"You're walking, aren't you?" Sam pointed out, indicating his feet. "That actually just helps to support my theory; you're not sinking through the floor when you walk about because, on some level, you're _willing _it to happen."

"Pardon?" Vala interjected, looking over at Sam in confusion. "How can he be _willing _himself to walk?"

"Mind over matter, essentially," Sam explained, as she looked back at Vala. "Spike here's become so _used _to being able to walk around that his body exists in an almost 'default' state of being able to walk about like that. Spike doesn't even need to concentrate to walk; his mind 'assumes' he'll be able to do it, so he does."

Spike opened his mouth to ask another question, but Sam held up a hand to stop him before he could even form the first word. "If you're wondering why you can't _touch_, take into account that we have to think _consciously _about picking things up; we don't even _need _to think about actually making contact with the ground. Your mind's subconsciously making up for your intangibility by almost _making _your feet tangible enough to walk, but you're still going to need to concentrate if you're actually going to _touch_ anything."

Staring at his hand, Spike groaned as he experimentally jabbed one hand at a nearby beaker, only to watch as it passed through the glass object.

"Bugger…" he muttered, before he looked back up at the team. "Don't suppose there's _any_ chance you could give some more pointers on the 'touching stuff' front?"

"Well, we're still in the early stages of working out anything about your current condition," Daniel said, shrugging apologetically at Spike. "Maybe we'll get a better idea of what you're actually capable of with further research into the matter, rather than just this initial scan."

"So, just wait and see what you can find out over time, eh?" Spike said, smiling in an almost wistful manner as he looked at Sam and Daniel. "You know, you two remind me of a couple of people I knew before… well, _this_ happened…"

Before Sam or Daniel could ask what he meant by that, Spike shook his head slightly as he looked apologetically at Daniel. "Of course, the main difference is you ain't got the English accent and she isn't doing the birds- you aren't, are you?" he asked, looking inquiringly at Sam.

"Uh… I'm not a lesbian, if that's what you mean," Sam said, looking uncertainly at the man in front of her, strongly hoping she'd understood his meaning correctly (The alternative meaning, of course, would just have been _way _too disturbing to even _think_ about…).

"Right," Spike said, before clapping his hands together once and turning around to look inquiringly at Daniel, a suddenly anxious expression on his face. "So, now we've got the scans out of the way, what's the date?"

"Uh… it's October first," Mitchell responded. "2006, to be exact."

After taking a moment to process this new information, Spike sighed, his expression growing bleak as he studied the walls around him, crossing his arms in a self-hugging action that Daniel remembered well.

"Nineteen days," he muttered to himself, as he continued to study his surroundings, as though he was looking for something. "Not a hundred forty-seven, but long enough."

"Excuse me?" Daniel prodded him. He guessed that the first reference was to how long it had been since the amulet had somehow been activated and done whatever it did to Spike, but the second reference escaped him.

"I died nineteen days ago," Spike clarified. "Was wearing that gaudy bit of jewelry at the time. Got no idea how it made its way to wherever-this-is."

Before any of SG-1 could respond to that statement of Spike's- even after all the times most of them had died, hearing someone _else _talk about their 'deaths' was still strange for them- the man in question turned to look at Daniel, a broad yet inquiring smile on his face. "Still, that's easily sorted; any chance you can see about giving Captain Cornfed a call and asking him why he sent that bloody amulet here in the first place?"

"Captain _who_?" Vala interjected in confusion, as she stared in confusion at Spike.

"I think Spike's _actually _referring to the Captain 'R Finn' who sent the amulet to me," Daniel said, turning to look inquiringly at Spike as he did so. "By the way, I don't suppose you can give me a _first _name for him? It'll make the search easier."

Spike paused for a moment, as though trying to decide whether or not he actually _wanted _to tell Daniel the information he was looking for- a fact that Daniel couldn't understand, given Spike's apparent eagerness to get a body back- but, finally, he sighed and nodded at Daniel.

"His first name's Riley," he said, before sighing and walking over to a nearby table, muttering under his breath. Daniel vaguely heard something about Spike resenting the fact that he'd soon owe 'Captain Cardboard' a favour, how he just _knew _the guy was going to rub it in…

Then he moved as though he was going to lean on a nearby table and his hands, followed closely by most of his upper body, fell right _through _the table to land on the floor.

* * *

"Bloody hell…" Spike muttered as he hauled himself back to his feet- grateful that he hadn't fallen through the _floor_- glaring back at the five SG-1 members, most of whom (Baring Teal'c; Spike had to wonder about that) had covered their mouths to try and stop themselves from laughing.

"S-sorry…" Daniel said, chuckling apologetically behind his hand as he indicated the table. "It's just… well, in our line of work… something like _that_…"

"DON'T," Spike reinforced, fixing Daniel with a determined glare. For a moment, the chuckling continued regardless of what Spike did, but, finally, the five people got themselves under control, all of them looking apologetically at Spike as they finally managed to contain the last of their giggles.

"S… sorry," Sam said, looking apologetically at Spike. "We… we didn't _mean_ anything by it. It's just… well, it _is_ kind of amusing..."

"Yeah, yeah, I get the picture," Spike said, rolling his eyes as he stuffed his hands back into his pockets and indicated the door. "Can we just get on with finding out what the bloody amulet's _doing _here in the first place?"

"Right…" Mitchell said, smiling awkwardly at Spike as he indicated the door. "Just follow us… we'll see what we can find."

Spike didn't bother to make a comment about the slight smirk that remained on the lieutenant colonel's face, he jus silently walked out of the door and began to walk down the corridor.

The worst part of it all, Spike mused to himself as Daniel and Sam walked on in front of him, was that he could understand _what _they found funny about what had just happened.

Hell, if it had been anyone but him, he'd probably have been laughing about it _himself_…

But, as it was, it _was _him, and now he was stuck with being totally intangible until somebody could work out how the hell they were going to _fix _this…

_It's official_, Spike mused to himself, as he rounded another corner and began to follow his new acquaintances up the stairs. _Someone up there has it in for me… _big _time._


	4. Posing Questions

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

As the vampire formerly known as William the Bloody (Or should that be _former _vampire, given his current intangible status? Spike wasn't sure) walked through the corridors of this… whatever it was… he'd arrived in, when he wasn't keeping an eye on his new 'friends' in front of him- and he still couldn't get over how much those two reminded him of Giles and Red- he constantly found himself staring at his surroundings.

_Bloody hell_… Spike mused to himself, ignoring the stares he was drawing from the other people in the base as he walked. _It's the sodding Initiative all over again; the US military dealing with the weird and wacky…_

Then again, it wasn't _exactly _like that; for one thing, unlike the group who'd stuck that chip in his head all those years ago, these suckers didn't seem to want to try and lock him up for study. Admittedly, so far it seemed like they _couldn't _do that, given his current ghost-like status, but still, the fact remained that they seemed more concerned with _helping _him than locking him up.

Plus, there was the guy with the symbol on his head to take into account. For a moment after seeing him, Spike had wondered if he was dealing with the sodding Knights of Byzantium all over again, but that had been quickly dismissed when he realised that the sucker was setting off his vampire 'warning' sense; that little feeling vampires got in the back of their heads when facing something that wasn't totally human. The guy definitely wasn't a demon, but there was something about him that wasn't _totally _normal, and nobody here seemed to want to dissect him or anything like that.

That aside, of course, there was also the fact that none of them recognised him or Captain Cornfed's name to take into account; if these guys _were _some new version of the Initiative, surely they'd have some decent information about what had happened to their predecessors? He got that his role in the destruction hadn't been _that _major in the overall scheme of things, but he'd still played his part; that had to count for _something_, right?

As the three of them stepped into the lift- Spike only now registered that the other three hadn't joined them; maybe they'd figured these two were the best candidates to explain what he was doing here in the first place- he took his chance and turned to look inquiringly at the two scientists.

"So…" he said, trying to sound casual as he spoke, "what do you two _do _here anyway? Come to that, where _is _here?"

Sam- the woman who still reminded Spike uncannily of Willow in the old pre-magic days, when she'd been the group techie rather than the group witch- opened her mouth as though to reply, but Daniel- or Giles Mark Two, as Spike was already thinking of him as- looked at her sharply and she stopped, as though swiftly recognising the expression on his face.

"_No_, Daniel," she said, looking critically at her friend. "I get that these aren't exactly… conventional circumstances… but we are _not _telling _everything _to somebody who can't even sign a non-disclosure policy in his current state."

"I'm not suggesting we tell him _everything_, Sam; just enough to explain what we're doing here and why we think we can help him," Daniel replied, looking over at Spike as he spoke. "I mean, I'm pretty sure you'd appreciate actually knowing why we think we can help you with this problem rather than having to take our word on blind faith alone, right?"

"Well…" Spike muttered thoughtfully, looking in a slightly teasing manner between his two new 'friends'- if you could call them that after such a short time- as though he was about to ask for more, before he finally shrugged. "Yeah, it _would _be something to know what the hell you guys do here; I've had a few bad experiences with military groups in the past."

* * *

"Would that be connected to the fact that 'R Finn' was in the employ of the DRI?" Sam asked, looking inquiringly at the 'ghost' as she pressed the lift button that would take them to the level where General Landry's office was located. "How did you know them?"

"Long story going nowhere; we just had a few minor disagreements shortly before they shut down," Spike explained, shrugging dismissively before looking back at Daniel. "So, getting back to business, what _do_ you do here anyway?"

Exchanging briefly exasperated glances with Sam- getting Spike to actually talk to them about whatever had happened was starting to look like it would be a job and a half to say the least- Daniel sighed as he turned back to face the 'ghost'.

"Well, as Sam said, there's a lot of stuff I _can't _tell you yet," he said, in a slightly apologetic manner. "For now, all I can safely tell you is that, some years ago, we discovered something that has the potential to be of great benefit to Earth, but it simultaneously put us in a very dangerous situation, to say the least. Our work here consists both of learning more about… well, what we discovered- I can't tell you what that _is _at the moment, either, so don't ask me- and developing ways of dealing with that… situation we caused. Sam and I head up the science and archaeology departments of… well, this organisation… ourselves."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding briefly, clearly noting the significant _lack _of any specific information in what Daniel had just told him, before rolling his eyes and staring fixedly at the archaeologist. "So, in other words, you guys repeated the same mistakes as the sodding Initiative; stumbled onto something you've got no sodding clue how to stop."

Daniel blinked in surprise at the suddenly harsh expression on Spike's face; for a moment, he felt as though Spike actually _knew _what they were dealing with, and felt as though he could handle it better than the SGC ever could…

Then the moment passed, and they silently continued upwards in the lift towards General Landry's office for a moment, until Spike spoke again.

"Any reason _why _the military decided to open up this particular can of worms again?" he asked, looking critically over at Sam this time. "I mean, after the mess the DRI made of things-"

"We're not _remotely _connected with the DRI, Spike; I thought we'd made that clear given your ignorance about the identity of 'R Finn'?" Sam said, looking back at their spectral visitor critically. "I don't know what they were involved in, but I can assure you we deal with totally different issues than were tackled by the DRI; they may have been involved with _something _strange, but we've barely even heard of them before now, so I doubt they've faced anything like we deal with on a regular basis."

"You sure about that?" Spike retorted, continuing to glare at Sam as they rode upwards.

"_Yes_, I'm sure," Sam replied, glaring at Spike. "If you knew _anything _about what we have to face, Spike, you'd understand why I'm convinced that we are having to learn the limits of our adversaries as we go along; if anybody knew _anything _useful about them, we would have been told about it already."

For a moment, the two of them just stared at each other, putting Daniel briefly in mind of the 'classic' image of a person's good and evil sides confronting each other; Sam's BDUs and Spike's leather coat couldn't have been a more vivid contrast, but there was a certain similarity between the two that he couldn't define. He'd only known Spike for a few minutes, an hour at best, but Daniel was already sure that Spike, like Sam, could be a very passionate man when it came to what he believed in.

Admittedly, _what _Spike believed in was still up for debate, but the point remained the same.

"So, net result is, you're _sure _you're dealing with something that nobody in the big pale house knew about before now?" Spike replied after a few moments of silence, looking critically at Sam.

"We're certain," Sam replied simply.

"And you're _not _related to the… well, what you guys call the 'DRI' in any way, shape or form?" the 'ghost' continued as the elevator doors finally opened, allowing the three of them to walk out of the elevator and head towards Landry's office.

"As far as I know, we don't even have any personnel from that group in the base at the moment," Daniel said, as he walked over to the door to the General's office before turning back to look at Spike. "So, is that everything you need to know about the situation here at the moment?"

Spike studied the two of them for a moment, his chin in his hand as he nodded thoughtfully, until, finally, he sighed and shrugged.

"It'll do," he said simply.

Exchanging glances with each other once more, Sam and Daniel shrugged, decided that they'd have to be satisfied with that response, and turned around to open the door before them.

* * *

Even before the Ori threat had launched its initial assaults on the Milky Way galaxy, General Landry had known from the moment he was appointed to his latest position as commander of the SGC that it would be far from an easy assignment.

However, there were only a few definite occasions where he felt as though he'd made a definite _mistake _accepting this command. That occasion when their reality had started becoming the 'central hub' for what seemed like every other parallel dimension in _existence _would always stick out in his mind as one of the strangest days he'd ever had in his life- having multiple versions of SG-1 walking about was certainly _not _something that happened every day, to say the least- but he'd hoped at the time that it would be as bizarre as it would ever get.

To date, his belief hadn't yet been challenged.

However, when Doctor Jackson and Colonel Carter walked into his office, followed by a man with almost white curly hair in a leather coat who literally walked _through _the wall by his door, he knew straight away that the time had come for him to deal with yet another complicated day in his life.

"Doctor Jackson; Colonel Carter," he said, nodding briefly at them politely before he turned to look curiously at the spectral visitor. "And _you _are…?"

"Spike," the man stated simply, his hands in his pockets as he stared critically at Landry, as though simultaneously daring the man to make something of his name and wondering exactly what Landry had done in his life to merit this kind of position.

Admittedly, Landry sometimes wondered that himself- there were days when he felt as though he must have ticked somebody off big-time to merit getting this kind of job- but he was hardly going to let this man know _that_…

"I presume there's an explanation for him walking through my wall?" he asked his two chief scientists, indicating the leather-clad man standing with one leg going through a chair opposite his desk.

"Well… that's what we're trying to figure out, sir," Colonel Carter explained, looking apologetically at him.

"You see," Doctor Jackson said, taking up the story from his colleague, "I was going through my mail, when I discovered a package containing an amulet of some kind, accompanied by a letter that said that the amulet would be 'helpful in our current crisis', without providing any further information. I opened it, there was a… well, 'tornado' is the only term I can think of… and Spike here appeared out of it."

"'Appeared'?" Landry repeated, looking in confusion as the man standing before his desk. In all the records he'd studied of the SGC's past missions, he'd never yet read anything about an intangible species who dressed like they were members of a gang of _bikers_, so either this man's planet had developed in a very unusual manner, or…

Well, Landry wasn't sure what the 'or' was right now, but he was sure there had to be one; even after all he'd seen in his life, he doubted that the man facing him was _born _like this.

"Where are you _from_, anyway?" he asked the man, turning to look critically at his spectral guest.

"England," the man replied. Jackson opened his mouth as though to make some kind of objection, but Spike continued before Jackson could say anything. "I've been away for a good few decades- haven't really had a need to go back there for the last few years- but you wanted to know where I'm from; that's the answer."

"Ah," Jackson said simply. He paused for a moment, as though waiting for Spike to elaborate further, but when the man refused to elaborate any further on his origins, the linguist sighed slightly and turned back to look at Landry and Carter, giving them a slightly apologetic shrug.

"Anyway," Carter said, taking up the story for her friend, "Spike- that's his name- says that he knows the person who sent the amulet to Daniel in the first place; his name's Riley Finn, and, according to his letter to me, he was in the employ of a group called the DRI until it shut down a few years ago."

"The DRI?" Landry said, looking inquiringly at Carter and Jackson. He vaguely recalled reading something about that group in some files, but it had been a while ago and he'd found what he _could _remember about their apparent 'objectives' so ridiculous he'd rejected it as some paranoid idiots trying to get funding for a pointless project that wouldn't do anything useful.

Quite frankly, when he'd heard that the organisation had been shut down three years ago, the only thing that had actually surprised Landry about it was that the organization had actually lasted for as long as it seemed to have been going on for according to the information on record; something that ludicrous, he would have expected it to be shut down years ago after somebody actually sat down and realised what a _stupid _organisation it was…

Admittedly, he did recall hearing some reference that the DRI may have been connected to the creation of the organisation now known as 'the Trust', but that had been only a rumour at best, so he'd pretty much ignored it at the time; as far as he was concerned, the Trust and the DRI were totally unrelated projects, and only the fact that a few personnel had been employed by both groups connected them in the slightest.

Still, if a former member of that organisation had sent something that could turn a fully-grown man totally intangible to a member of SG-1, with the aforementioned intangible man actually _in _the amulet- based on Doctor Jackson's story, it sounded as though the man had been 'inside' the amulet before he appeared here- it was clear to Landry there was clearly more to the organisation than he might have initially suspected.

"So… you think that this 'Captain Finn' might be able to tell you something about… Spike's condition?" Landry asked, indicating the spectral figure who was presently waving his arm through the shelves on Landry's wall.

"Well, he did say I could contact him if we wanted any further information about the amulet," Daniel continued, exchanging brief glances with Sam before he turned back to look at Landry. "Sam and I are pretty sure we might be able to figure out _some _way of getting Spike back to normal, but it could help if we can contact Captain Finn and ask him for further information about what we're trying to undo in the first place; if he knows anything about the amulet, it could help us figure out a way to reverse the process."

A part of Landry was tempted to ask why they _wanted _to help him- after all, Spike's attitude towards him and them so far was far from commendable, as far as Landry could see- but the rest of him knew why Doctor Jackson in particular would want to help Spike.

It was just the way he was.

In the past, Doctor Jackson had been prepared to die- and, indeed, practically _had _died- to save a planet and people that he'd only just met, for no reason other than that it was the right thing to do.

In many ways, Landry should be grateful that he wouldn't be forced to deal with a repeat of that this time around; he somehow doubted that figuring out what had happened to this man would necessitate anybody _dying_.

Besides, he had to admit, he was as curious as anybody to learn why somebody from the DRI thought that an amulet would provide them with assistance in the current war against the Ori…

"All right," he said finally, looking ruefully over at the leather-clad 'ghost' standing in his office for a moment before turning back to look at the heads of his science and archaeology departments. "I'll get the contact details together as soon as I can."

"Don't know whether to be pleased or disappointed," the 'ghost' muttered as he looked back at Landry, a sullen expression on his face as he stuck his hands in his pockets and walked over to stand beside Daniel. "Just don't ask me to talk with him much when he gets here, OK? We never really got on when we meant to be on the same sodding side; I _don't _think that'll change just because I'm… well, dead_er_."

"Uh… right," Daniel said. An apologetic glance at Landry told the general all he needed to know; Doctor Jackson had just as little idea what 'Spike' had meant by that 'Dead_er_' comment than he did, and no idea how to broach the subject at the moment.

As Landry turned to his computer to pull up the contact details that Doctor Jackson had requested, he wondered how long it would take before they knew the answer to the remaining questions their visitor's presence presented them with.

* * *

_GOD_… Riley sighed to himself as he sank down into his chair, grateful that he could at last take some time off from work. He may have enjoyed the demon-fighting aspects of his profession on most occasions- particularly after all that time spent with Buffy and her gang meant that he got a better idea of what he'd end up dealing with- but there were times when the long-term missions could get _very _frustrating.

Ever since their first son- a boy, who Sam had insisted they name 'Liam' for reasons Riley had never been able to discover- had been born, Sam had typically remained at home when Riley was on missions, giving him _another _reason to hate these kind of missions; at least in the old days he'd been able to spend time with his wife while in action.

He was just grateful that the last one- a search to eliminate a nest of some rather disgusting slime-based demons in the Amazon- had been over with relatively quickly. As far as he was concerned, from this point onwards, for the next couple of weeks, he was just going to stay at home with his family and catch up on spending some time with his son…

His pleasant internal monologue and plans for the future were interrupted by a ringing telephone. Sighing, he sat up in his chair- he never liked taking calls in his office while slouching; it made him feel unprofessional- and picked up the receiver.

"Captain Riley Finn," he said casually.

"_Uh… hi_," a voice said on the other end. "_This is Doctor Daniel Jackson; I believe that you recently sent me a certain package_?"

Riley's eyes widened in surprise.

Doctor Daniel Jackson- the man who'd single-handedly cracked the mystery of the Stargate, not to mention the man who'd helped to save the _world _so often that he personally thought even Buffy's team would have been impressed- was calling _him_?

Then he remembered the amulet and shook his head for his instinctive 'hero worship'; he may have been impressed by what the various members of SG-1 had accomplished, but they were still only _human_, no matter what they had done with their lives (Except for that Jaffa member- Teal'c, Riley believed the man's name had been).

It was only natural that somebody should want to ask him about the amulet once it arrived- he hadn't left a note explaining anything about what the amulet could do in case somebody intercepted the package and tried to use it for other means- so, in that regard, the call was only to be expected.

"Y-yeah, that's right," he said, kicking himself mentally when he realised he'd spent a few seconds in stunned silence when Doctor Jackson was still talking to him on the other end of the line. "Is there something you wanted to ask me about the… contents of the package?"

"_You could say that_," Doctor Jackson said at the other end of the line, a slightly exasperated tone in his voice as he continued to speak. "_The package you sent? I acknowledge that you probably have your reasons for sending it to us which I'll be happy to discuss in a moment or two, but it turned to have a… well, an 'extra', for lack of a better term… that I _don't _think you knew about_."

"In what way?" Riley asked, confusion quickly taking the place of his original, almost instinctive surprise at being contacted by Doctor Jackson.

"_Hold on a minute; I'll put you on speakerphone_," Doctor Jackson said. Riley heard a faint click, and then Doctor Jackson's voice spoke again. "_OK, you're up_."

"_Thank _God…" a voice said, barely audible at first, before Riley heard it as clearly as though the speaker was standing right beside him. "_That you, Captain Cornfed_?"

Riley's eyes widened in shock.

"_SPIKE_?" he said incredulously, pulling the phone away from his ear as though it had just become a poisonous snake.

He couldn't believe it; _Spike _was not only still _alive_, he was at the Stargate facility?

Riley wasn't sure whether he should be terrified at what Spike could do, or grateful that the peroxide vampire _hadn't _given up his 'life' to defeat the First and the Turok-han army in the destruction of the Hellmouth. He may not have liked the… thing… he once referred to as Hostile Seventeen, but, after the vampire had given his _life _to save the world…

Well, Riley wouldn't have been human if he hadn't at least felt _slightly _sorry about it. For all his faults, in the end, when push came to shove-

"_Hello_?" Doctor Jackson's voice said on the other end of the line, breaking his train of thought; in the initial shock of hearing Spike's voice, Riley had forgotten that he was still talking to the archaeologist. "_Captain Finn? Are you still there_?"

"Y… yeah…" Riley said, shaking himself back to the matter at hand. "Sorry; it was… well, a bit of a shock hearing… Spike again, I guess."

"_So, you _do _know him_?" Doctor Jackson asked.

"_Haven't I already _told _you enough_-" Spike began.

"_There's nothing wrong with wanting a _second_ view on the situation, Spike_," Doctor Jackson said, before he directed his attention back to the conversation with Riley. "_Are you still there? Sorry about the interruption_-"

"It's… it's fine, Doctor Jackson; I know how Spike can get at times," Riley replied, trying to regain his composure- not an easy thing to do, after talking to somebody who he'd been _certain _was dead, but he was trying his best. "I knew him a couple of years ago, but it's been a while since we've worked together; it's just, the last I heard of him, he…"

Riley shook his head; he couldn't talk about the details of the destruction of the Hellmouth over the _phone_ to someone who hadn't heard of demons until now, after all. He had to stick to the facts of the matter, find out what he _needed _to know, and _then _worry about the detail of what to tell Doctor Jackson about his past involvement with Spike.

"How… how did he _get _there?" he asked, deciding he should stick to the important details of the matter facing him at the moment.

"_As I said; the amulet you sent me had some… interesting properties_," Doctor Jackson explained; Riley thought he heard Spike say something about 'Bloody understatement', but he couldn't be certain. "_When it came out of the package, it somehow… well, I'm not sure how, but Spike appeared out of it, totally intangible and apparently unable to interact with anything else; we're working on a theory that he might be able to touch, but that's not important right now. We're going to see what we can do about giving him his body back, but to do that, we need to know more about what caused him to be transformed into this state in the first place…_"

"And you called me hoping I'd be able to provide you with something?" Riley asked, an anxious feeling already growing in his stomach. He wasn't sure exactly _how _something like what Doctor Jackson had described could have happened- he'd certainly never expected Spike to be _in _the amulet (For lack of a better description) when he sent it to the SGC- but, if it was there, and it had done something like this to the person using it…

He supposed they deserved to know more about why he'd sent them that amulet in the first place; if nothing else, if they were going to try and use that amulet against the Ori, they needed to know how to prevent something like _that _happening to the next person to use it against them.

And, indeed, they'd probably need to know how he knew what it was capable of in the first place; SG-1 were _not _the type to take somebody's word on blind faith alone.

"Well… I think I can help you there," he said, after a moment's pause. "It's… not exactly something I want to discuss over the phone, but if you give me a day or two, I can be down in Colorado to talk about it…"

"_That sounds fine; face-to-face is always better in these situations_," Doctor Jackson said at the other end of the line, a relieved tone in his voice; he was evidently eager for answers to some of the questions Spike must have given them. "_Let us know when you'll be here; I'll arrange a meeting-place as soon as we know when you'll be here_."

As he hung up the line after giving his consent, Riley just hoped he managed to answer the questions that would be bound to be awaiting him when he got there.

He didn't like recalling the attitude of some of the Initiative members back in the old days when he was _alone_; talking to the legends that were SG-1 about how he'd been a willing part of a group who just regarded anything that _wasn't _totally human as an automatic threat, whether or not it had actually been seen doing anything wrong in the first place?

In the files he'd read about the SGC, he'd found several uncomfortable reminders of his attitude back then in what he'd read about the NID or the 'Trust'; after all, they'd been prepared to wipe out whole _planets _of Jaffa just to try and stop the Goa'uld, believing that it didn't matter that they'd kill hundred of innocent Jaffa in the process just because the Jaffa weren't _human_.

OK, the Initiative hadn't done anything on the scale of what the Trust had done, but the point was still the same.

He just hoped he'd manage to explain that he wasn't like that anymore _before _they walked out on him in disgust at his past actions.

Taking a deep breath, he stood up, put away the paperwork he'd been thinking of looking at- he doubted he'd be able to focus on it with what he'd just learned occupying his thoughts- and headed for the door of his office.

No matter how afraid he was of how the meeting would go, he had to prepare for it, and that, among other things, necessitated him asking his superior for the time off that the meeting would require him to be away for.


	5. Tales from the DRI

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

A couple of days later- it would have taken him only a day to arrange the meeting normally, but he'd needed another day to convince his superiors to grant SG-1 the clearance to know more about what the Initiative had been set up to do in the first place; he wasn't going to _lie _to people he respected this much- Riley Finn sat in a café in the heart of Colorado Springs, anxiously studying his surroundings as he sipped at his coffee and tried not to think too much about what he was about to do.

He was sitting here, waiting to meet people who had actually helped to save the _planet_- and, if what he'd heard was right, they'd sometimes even helped to save the entire _galaxy_ itself- on several occasions…

Working with Buffy and her friends had been one thing; at least he'd learnt about the 'saving-the-world' side of their lives after he'd had the chance to know them as _people_. It was kind of hard to think of people as superheroes when you knew that one of them had a fondness for cheese and sometimes dropped her books while another one was prone to babbling when she got too excited.

The members of SG-1… after all he'd read about them over the years, they'd acquired an almost _legendary _status in his mind. The general who turned his initial pain at the loss of his family and channelled it into defending his world… the astrophysicist who'd become one of the leading experts in alien technology… the archaeologist whose theories were rejected had been proven correct… the alien who had defied his 'god' to save a roomful of strangers… the new member who led the team against a threat like nothing they could have once imagined… the former space thief who'd been abducted and impregnated by a race of pan-dimensional beings…

From everything Riley had heard, the members of SG-1, as far as he was concerned, could easily be called the stuff of legend, and here he was, about to meet them and reveal that there was a whole other world out there that had been kept secret from humanity for centuries, a world where good and evil had waged a war since time unmemorable…

"Are you Captain Riley Finn?" a voice said from off to the side, breaking through his train of thought.

Shaking off his thoughts, Riley glanced in the direction of the voice, but was slightly disappointed to see that there were only three people standing there; judging by what he remembered of the description of the team in the files, the dark-skinned man in the black hat, dark trousers and short-sleeved green shirt was Teal'c, the other man in the dark blue jeans and shirt was definitely Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell, and the dark-haired woman in the tight-fitting leather trousers and tight dark red top was most likely the infamous ex-space-thief Vala Mal Doran.

All in all, Riley supposed he should be grateful that he didn't have Daniel Jackson or Samantha Carter here at present; these people may be _impressive_, but at least Mitchell and Doran didn't have so significant a reputation that he'd be left feeling like a boy chatting to a major celebrity, and with Teal'c…

Well, it might be a kind of 'species-ist' attitude, but with Teal'c being an alien, his achievements weren't quite on the same scale of 'impressive' as those of a human being were. After all, most of the things Teal'c had done were things that no human could have ever actually done in the first place- the fact that his actions resulted in the formation of the Free Jaffa Nation itself were incredible enough- so, in some ways, the fact that he was an alien made it a bit easier to feel less awed by him, as you were left feeling that you _couldn't _be as good as him no matter how much you tried.

The other members of the team, being human, could almost serve as 'inspirations' or 'goals' for Riley to aspire to, but Teal'c being a… well, an alien, though Riley hated using terms like that these days; he'd learned long ago that _species _wasn't as important as what was within… it was somewhat unrealistic for any human to try and aspire to _his _standards. After all, he was something like a hundred years old with significantly above-average strength and several years of experience with the Goa'uld and their technology; it would be hard for _any _human to come anything close to equalling that kind of experience…

Realizing that he'd allowed himself to get lost in his thoughts at an inappropriate moment, Riley shook his head to force himself back on track, smiled apologetically at SG-1, and stood up to shake Mitchell's hand.

"Yeah, that's me; Riley Finn, formerly of the Demon Research Initiative, currently in… well, if I told you _that_, I'd have to kill you" he said, smiling slightly to assure the SG-1 members that he was joking before indicating the other chairs before him. "Please, feel free to sit down."

"Thank you," Vala said, smiling broadly at him as she sat down in the nearest chair, giving him an affectionate squeeze on the shoulder as she leaned over (Displaying, a part of Riley noted with no slight degree of guilt, a rather attractive view of her cleavage). "Good to see a new face, by the way; it's been a while since I had the opportunity to meet new people."

"Uh… where are Doctor Jackson and Colonel Carter?" Riley asked, trying to drive the image of Vala's chest out of his head as he looked inquiringly over at Teal'c, the Jaffa and Colonel Mitchell having already sat down in the remaining two chairs.

"They have chosen to remain at Stargate Command in an attempt to learn more about the process that has transformed 'Spike' into his current condition," Teal'c replied, staring at Riley with the neutral expression that the former Initiative member had heard so much about. "Colonel Carter hopes that further study of Spike will provide her with an explanation as to how he has become intangible, and Daniel Jackson is endeavouring to find further information about the amulet that was sent to him."

"Of course," Mitchell said, folding his arms to look critically at Riley, "as long as we're on the topic of that amulet, you could save us a lot of time if you'd care to explain how you know our spectral friend- or, for that matter, why you _sent_ us that amulet in the first place?"

Riley sighed slightly as he leaned forward, looking down at the table for a brief moment before he nodded grimly to himself and directed his gaze back up at the three people before him.

"Yeah… I'll tell you," he said, looking anxiously over at Teal'c in particular as he continued to speak. "But before I begin, I should make it clear that what I'm about to tell you is traditionally classified information restricted to anybody who was involved in the project I was part of at the time I knew Spike; I had to go to a lot of effort to convince my superiors just to let you and your teammates know what I'm about to tell you."

"Hold on; we're authorised to know about _aliens_, but we weren't authorised to know what you guys were doing?" Mitchell asked, looking at Riley as though the other man had grown a new head and didn't even seem to have noticed. "What could be _that _major-?"

"Demons- vampires, werewolves, all the rest of it- and magic exist," Riley responded, staring at the group of three before him, a small smile on his face as he observed their reactions; Mitchell was looking at him incredulously, Vala looked slightly puzzled, and Teal'c had raised both eyebrows in surprise at what he'd just heard.

"Demons exist?" Teal'c said at last, staring at Riley with an expression that was probably as close to 'surprised' as the Jaffa was ever likely to get. "How is such a thing possible?"

"I've never been entirely clear on that myself, to be perfectly honest," Riley replied, shrugging apologetically at the Jaffa, wishing he'd paid more attention to Giles' explanation about the origin of the demon species, before he looked back at Mitchell. "All I know for sure is that they do; I spent the better part of two years of my life stationed in Sunnydale, a small town in California stationed over something that was essentially a portal down to Hell itself, and there we encountered a surprising amount of demons, vampires, werewolves, and things that generally go 'bump' in the night."

"Ah," Mitchell said, as he looked at Riley, a blank, almost diplomatic expression on his face; clearly, he didn't entirely believe Riley, but, at the same time, he was prepared to let it go for the moment. "So, what's Spike's connection to that group? I doubt he was _employed _by it, given his attitude, and I don't see him being a friend you made down there- you two don't seem like you'd get along- so how'd you meet him?"

"Well…" Riley said, looking uncertainly at the three members of SG-1 before him before he finally sighed and came to a decision. "Spike was one of our test subjects; his official designation in the Initiative files is 'Hostile Seventeen', and he's a vampire aged around a hundred and forty years old."

For a moment, all three SG-1 members stared incredulously at Riley, taking in what he'd just said about Spike, before a confused-looking Vala broke the silence.

"Vampire?" she said, looking in confusion between Mitchell and Teal'c. "Sorry, but I think I've lost the plot somewhere here; what's a vampire?"

"A creature from Earth fiction," Teal'c explained, glancing over in her direction with a solemn glare on his face. "According to the tales of Earth, a vampire is a human being, formerly dead, who is now condemned to suck the blood of the living in order that it might survive, simultaneously seeking to create more of its kind by forcibly transforming its victims into creatures like itself."

Vala blinked in surprise.

"Spike's something like _that_?" she said, looking incredulously at Riley. "Why didn't you just kill him when you found him?"

"Well, the supervisor of the group I was a member of at the time- Professor Maggie Walsh, posing as a psychology professor in the local university- was more interested in… well, 'experimenting' on Spike and the various other demons we… 'acquired' during our time in Sunnydale than just killing them outright," Riley explained; he wished that his discomfort about this new direction the conversation was taking wasn't so _obvious _to everybody else. "Spike was one of our earlier 'subjects' in demon behaviour control experiments; seeking to find out if demons could be used as 'living weapons' for the government, Professor Walsh planted a chip in his head that caused Spike extreme pain if he tried to attack or bite a human being. I think she was hoping that she'd be able to use the chip to blackmail various vampires to become 'soldiers' for the government in war time- you know, they do what she wanted, or she wouldn't feed them."

Riley shook his head sadly as he recalled that time of his life. "God, what was I _thinking_, condoning something like that…?"

"What's the problem?" Vala asked, looking quizzically at Riley. "I mean, you were experimenting on _demons_; from what I've gathered in my time out in the galaxy- Qetesh was compared to one often enough, trust me- aren't they meant to be a _bad_ thing?"

"Some people believed the same of the Jaffa when I first came to Earth," Teal'c put in, looking critically over at Vala before he turned to glare at Riley. "Simply because most demons would indeed be opposed to humanity, that is not to say that _all _of them would be. This Professor Walsh was making the fatal mistake of judging an entire species on the actions of a few; her actions should not have been condoned."

"Trust me, I realised that pretty soon after I started to work with… well, an independent group of demon hunters," Riley explained, looking somewhat apologetically at Teal'c. Mitchell opened his mouth to speak, but Riley held up his hand. "No, I'm not keeping _this_ secret from you because of clearance issues; I'm keeping it secret because I promised a friend I wouldn't tell it to anyone unless it was _absolutely _necessary."

"And you don't think it might be necessary now?" Mitchell asked, looking inquiringly at Riley. "For all you know, these people could hold the key to working out what the hell _happened _to Spike-"

"He knows them as well; if he thinks they'll be able to tell you something useful, he'll probably tell you who they are himself," Riley interrupted, looking in a focused manner at Mitchell. "He knows them better than I did, anyway; if he _does _think they can help him out at the moment, he'll tell you who they are, but otherwise, it's his decision."

Secretly, Riley acknowledged that Mitchell made a valid point- the Scooby Gang _might _be able to cure Spike's currently 'intangible' condition- but he was pretty sure that Spike would prefer to make that kind of decision himself, rather than have it made _for _him by somebody he undoubtedly didn't like that much already.

Despite the seriousness of his current situation, Riley allowed himself a small smile at the thought of him actually respecting _Spike's_ potential feelings about something before he began to speak once more.

"Anyway," he said, continuing to look at Mitchell, "Spike broke out of our facility after the chip was installed, and took refuge with that group of independent demon hunters- I'll just call them 'the Renegades' for ease of identification- to escape us. He soon learned that his chip didn't stop him from hurting other vampires and demons, so he began to fight alongside the 'Renegades' to vent some of his frustration about his current situation."

"Oh; he couldn't go after _humans_, so he beat up on everything that he _could _hit?" Vala said, smiling broadly at him. "Well, that makes sense…"

"Yeah, but it's hardly a reliable reason for trusting him," Mitchell interjected, looking grimly at Riley. "He may not be able to hurt anybody at the moment, but what happens if we give him his body back and he finds some way of getting that thing out of himself?"

Riley shook his head. "Fortunately, that's not an issue; about a year ago- I'm not sure exactly _how_- Spike went to a demonic shaman of some kind, and…"

Riley shrugged apologetically. "I'm not sure how or why, but the guy restored Spike's soul."

"His _soul_?" Mitchell said, looking incredulously at Riley. "We're getting into _theology _now? Askin' me to accept that _demons _exist was bad enough…"

"Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c said, looking inquiringly over at his commanding officer, "are you saying that you are capable of accepting the idea that the human body can transcend its physical limitations to exist as pure energy, and yet you are unable to accept the idea that there is a part of the human body that is capable of surviving after the demise of the physical body?"

Mitchell opened his mouth as though he was about to reply, but then he paused, as though considering what his friend had just said, and nodded slightly after a few moment's pause.

"Good… point there, T.," he said, before looking back at Riley, the earlier uncertainty gone from his face. "Existence of the soul aside, what does Spike getting his back have to do with anything?"

"Well," Riley began, as he tried to recall how Buffy had explained the situation to him, back when he'd first asked about Angel, "essentially, when the human corpse becomes a vampire, the soul is replaced by a vampire demon. The demon, lacking a conscience, is driven solely by the need to drink and hunt, regardless of the consequences to its victims, and generally acts like the worst kind of psychopath."

Riley paused for a moment, looking around to make sure that the three SG-1 members sitting before him had taken in what he'd just said to them, before he continued to speak. "_With _a soul, however, the vampire retains his memories of what he's done… but he actually has a _conscience_, and is able to feel guilt over what he's done to all the people he's killed."

Mitchell's eyes widened slightly in shock as she looked at Riley.

"Are you saying this guy spent a hundred years killing people, and now he's suddenly able to feel _guilty _about it?" he asked, looking critically at Riley. Riley nodded, and Mitchell slumped back into his chair, staring up at the sky. "God… I don't know whether to be sceptical or shocked…"

"I'd go with shocked; he's definitely _not _the same person who committed his crimes," Riley said, as he finally found himself getting on to the query that had brought him to this point in the first place; what did the amulet do?

"Anyway," he continued, as he looked over at Mitchell once more, " a few weeks back, Spike and the 'Renegades' were dealing with a non-corporeal entity- much like what I've read about the Ori- that called itself 'the First'."

"The First?" Vala said, looking inquiringly at Riley. "The First what?"

"The First Evil, if you can believe its claims," Riley continued, ignoring the inquiring look on Mitchell's face as he continued to speak; there was no point responding to questions that Riley _knew _he wouldn't be able to answer. "Anyway, the First had set itself up on top of a dimensional rift, and was drawing on the energy from that rift to call upon an army of 'uber-vampires', in an attempt to increase its power."

"Much like the Ori seek worshippers to increase their own power," Teal'c noted.

"Exactly," Riley said, before continuing. "Anyway, although ancient, the First could only plan and talk at the moment- something about the current balance between good and evil prevented it from becoming solid- but it had used a recent imbalance in the scales of good and evil- I'm not entirely sure _what_- to gather the energy to create its current army, intending to use that power to let itself manifest on our plan as a corporeal entity. Using that amulet I sent you, Spike managed to access the energy of the sun, channelling that power against the First, who tried to use the energy of the dimensional rift to oppose him, and…"

Riley shrugged. "I don't know how, but the First was banished from our plane and its army was destroyed."

For a moment, Riley just sat back as SG-1 stared incredulously at the former Initiative member before them, clearly unsure whether he was actually telling the truth, before Vala finally broke the silence.

"Are you saying that Spike used that amulet to _destroy _something that doesn't even technically have a _body_?" she said, looking at Riley as though she was trying to decide whether or not he'd grown a second head. "But… but the _power _involved…"

"From what I've gathered, the amulet already possessed power on its own; Spike exposing himself to the sunlight just gave that power a greater boost," Riley continued. "With the destruction of the First's army, the resulting energy released by the amulet apparently sealed the dimensional rift it had been tapping into, and, according to my contacts in the 'Renegades', banished the First from our plane of existence, if not for good, than for a considerable while. When I found the amulet, I remembered what I'd read about it and thought you could find a use for it in the current conflict against the Ori, so I had it sent to you, and…"

He shrugged awkwardly. "Well, you know the rest. I didn't know about Spike being _in _the amulet, I assure you; I just thought that, if it had defeated _one _noncorporeal entity, you might be able to use it to figure out some kind of defence against the Ori."

"Indeed," Teal'c said, nodding slightly as he looked at Riley in a thoughtful manner. "Your intentions are much appreciated, Captain Finn."

"Yeah, thanks for trying to help out," Mitchell continued, smiling gratefully at the young man before them. "Not entirely sure _how _we're going to use a potentially explosive amulet against the Ori- and Spike adds a whole _other _factor to the equation, of course- but it's worth thinking about, anyway."

"No need to thank me; all I wanted to do was help out," Riley assured him. "Oh, and you don't need to worry about the amulet; from what I gathered from Bu- my contacts-, it only activates when it's actually exposed to energy while _already _in close proximity to a noncorporeal being, so it should be safe to take it through the Stargate without experiencing any… you know, negative side effects…"

"Yeah, like the mountain blowing up because the Stargate didn't like the amulet? Gotcha; always good to know," Mitchell continued, looking in a very pointed manner at Riley. "Well, with that straightened out, there's only one more thing that I think we need to know; can we trust Spike enough to let him stick around at the SGC without defecting to the other guys, or should we see about… I dunno, calling in the exorcist to banish him?"

For a moment, Riley paused, uncertain how he should reply to this latest query. On the one hand, he'd never quite been able to bring himself to trust Spike in all the time they'd worked together, and even after the vampire had regained his soul, he'd have been perfectly happy to have him staked…

But that was before he'd given his life to save the world.

The fact that the vampire once known as William the Bloody had somehow survived being exposed to sunlight and being at the centre of the explosion that destroyed the Hellmouth didn't matter; Spike couldn't have _known_ that was going to happen, so it did nothing to diminish his original sacrifice.

After doing something like that, how could Riley _not _trust Spike to do the right thing?

Besides, given the current threat being faced by the SGC, having someone with Spike's experience with the strange and unusual on their side- even if it wasn't exactly the strange and unusual the SGC were _used _to facing- couldn't fail to be a good thing, as far as he could see…

"Yes," he said at last, looking Mitchell directly in the eyes. "Spike's attitude can be… aggravating… at times, but, if you're in a combat situation, he's as loyal a fighter as you could wish for. He doesn't want to destroy the _world_- even before he got his soul, he actually fought to _save _it on one occasion- and I doubt he'd be interested in following the Ori. His past may not be perfect, but after what he did before he… well, ended up in his current state… I'd say it's pretty certain that he's fighting for the right side nowadays."

"So, can we tell him about the Stargate, or would you recommend keeping that secret?" Vala interjected.

"Overall?" Riley said, looking over at Vala as he spoke, a briefly thoughtful expression on his face before he finally came to a decision.

"I'd say you can," he said, looking back at Mitchell once again; as the commander SG-1, he was the logical person to direct his statements to. "After all, Spike's lived among humans for a hundred years or so and managed to keep his existence quiet to all those who didn't already know about him. He knows the importance of secrets- admittedly, some of his secrets relate to his past as a vampire, but he's still pretty good at keeping them quiet unless he _has _to tell anyone about them- so I doubt he'd give away the truth about the Stargate program.

"Besides," Riley continued, shrugging nonchalantly as he looked at the three SG-1 members, "he's not the type to tell people about his life unless he already knows them well, so even if he _did _tell anybody about, it he'd probably only tell people who could keep it secret anyway."

"Gotcha," Mitchell said, nodding gratefully at Riley. "His own secrets aren't pretty, but if he's kept them, he can keep this one, huh?"

Riley nodded in confirmation. A part of himself still couldn't believe he was actually approving _Spike_ of all people for clearance to one of the biggest secrets on the face of the _planet_…

But, everything he'd said had been accurate; even intangible, Spike's combat experience could prove useful to the team, and he was certainly capable of keeping secrets if he had to keep them.

"Just don't ask him to change his attitude if he's staying there on a long-term basis," he added, a slight smile on his face as he recalled Spike's attitude back when they'd both 'worked together' back in Sunnydale; looking back, with the ability to be objective about Spike's attitude towards him, he had to admit that, in some ways, the vampire had been kind of amusing in his own way. "The guy's pretty much made a living out of getting on people's nerves, but he's dependable if you can put up with him; trust me, it's better to have him as annoying but on your side than it is to have him against you because you protested too much about his attitude."

"I can assure you, Captain Finn," Teal'c put in, smiling slightly at Riley, "after what the SGC has endured due to the presence of such individuals as General O'Neill or Vala Mal Doran, there is little that Spike could do that would annoy the personnel of the base more than they have already done so."

"Quite," Vala said, smiling reassuringly at Riley before she seemed to realise what had just been said and spun around to glare at Teal'c. "Hey!"

"Face facts, Val; you _can _be a bit of a pain in the neck sometimes," Mitchell said, smiling casually over at the former space thief before looking back at Riley. "Thanks for your time, Captain Finn; we appreciate what you've had to tell us."

"You're welcome," Riley said, nodding back at the colonel as the two men stood up and shook hands, Riley subsequently shaking Vala and Teal'c's as well. "Just… remember what I told you about Spike, OK? He can be frustrating, but, if you can get past his attitude, he's a good fighter to have on your side in a tight spot."

"We shall bear that in mind, Captain Finn," Teal'c said, nodding slightly at Riley as the three SG-1 members walked away from the table, Vala giving Riley one last wave before they'd vanished into the crowd outside the café.

_Well_, Riley thought to himself, as he stood up and stretched slightly himself, _that went as well as I could have expected_.

Then again, he shouldn't have been surprised that SG-1 would be so willing to accept the existence of demons even on a provisional basis; after al, if the SGC could accept the existence of beings who existed as pure energy, than demons and magic wasn't entirely _that _much of a stretch.

Either way, he'd done what he came here to do; he'd told them what the amulet did, he'd told them about Spike, and he'd given his honest opinion on whether or not Spike could be trusted.

Everything after that was up to them and Spike.

Satisfied, Riley placed a tip down on the table and walked out of the café, heading back towards his hotel.


	6. Briefing Spike

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

"So, you're telling us that you were wearing this amulet when you… _died_?" Sam said, staring incredulously at Spike as he stood in the middle of her lab, her equipment continuing to scan him as Daniel sat off in the corner, the amulet in his lap as he looked at Spike in equal curiosity.

So far, neither of their lines of research had managed to turn up anything useful about the amulet; Daniel had thought about taking it home with him to study his own books for further information, but the sudden appearance of Spike in his car had prompted him to return and bring a couple of books with him. Admittedly, the occurrence did seem to indicate that Spike was still 'tied' to the amulet somehow- he evidently couldn't go very far from it, or have it be taken some distance away from him, without him being pulled towards its current location- but, that aside, neither of the two scientists had discovered anything useful yet.

"Once again, _yes_; how often do I have to bloody say it before you get the picture?" Spike retorted, glaring briefly at Sam before looking back in Daniel's direction. "And have you got anything more from that thing yet, by the way?"

"Spike," Daniel sighed, standing up and slipping the amulet into his pocket as he stared critically at the 'ghost', "if I'd found anything between now and the ten minutes since you _last _asked me that question, wouldn't I have _told _you about it already?"

Spike shrugged.

"Who can say?" he said nonchalantly, a grin momentarily appearing on his face before he sighed and experimentally jabbed a finger at a nearby beaker, once again failing to make any impression on the object.

"Are you _sure _I might be able to make contact with stuff?" he asked Sam, looking critically over at the scientist as he jerked an irritated thumb at the beaker. "I've been doing that for _ages _and it hasn't so much as _shifted_."

"Spike," Sam said, sighing in frustration as she looked up from the screen she was studying to look at their strange guest, "as I've told you before, every scan I've taken of your body suggests that you _should _be able to make contact with other objects if you're focusing enough; you just aren't maintaining the concentration necessary to make contact with anything."

"Well, in case you hadn't sodding _noticed_, I've got a _lot _on my mind right now!" Spike retorted, glaring angrily at the scientist. "I mean, here I am, stuck on a base because Captain Cornfed decided to send you that sodding amulet, for reasons we _still _don't know about, and-"

"Captain Finn sent the amulet to us because you used it to defeat a being that shares many features with the enemies we face at the present moment," a voice said from off to the side.

"Teal'c?" Daniel said, turning to look at the door with a smile on his face as he saw the other three members of SG-1 come walking into the room. "Good to see…"

His voice suddenly trailed off as he took in what Teal'c had just said.

"Hold on; this amulet was used to defeat an _Ascended being_?" he said, staring incredulously at the large gem he held in his hand. "How is that even _possible_?"

"And what were you even _doing _facing something like _that_?" Sam interjected, staring incredulously at Spike. "No offence, but how could _you _know about the presence of an Ascended being on Earth when we _didn't_?"

"Hold on; can we back up a bit for the confused… whatever I am nowadays?" Spike protested, raising his hands defensively as he looked over at Teal'c. "What's all this about me taking out an… 'Ascended' being? What does that even _mean_, 'Ascended'?"

"The being you knew as the First shares many similarities with the danger we currently face," Teal'c explained, as he looked at Spike. "Like them, the First is a being that lacks a physical form, and thus cannot be hurt or killed by conventional means, but nevertheless retains the ability to communicate with the world. Captain Finn sent us the amulet that you used against the First because he believed that it might help us develop a defence against our current opponents-"

"Wait a minute; you suckers face stuff like the _First_?" Spike interrupted, looking incredulously over at Daniel.

"Well, not directly…" Daniel said, nodding uncertainly for a moment before his expression became more focused as he looked at Spike. "And come to that, how could _you _have encountered some kind of Ascended being on Earth? They're not _allowed _to interfere!"

"Actually, _that's _where it gets interesting," Mitchell said, smiling slightly over at his friends as he turned to look at Spike. "See, it turns out that Spike here met Captain Finn when Finn was assigned to a team to investigate demon activity in a town called Sunnydale."

"_Demons_?" Sam said, looking at Mitchell as though he'd grown a new head. "Excuse me, but are you saying there was a government organisation created to confront actual _demons_?"

"That's what Captain Finn told us," Mitchell said, turning to look at Sam as he spoke. "I admit, I don't totally buy it any more than you do, but, according to Finn, demons have been walking the Earth for centuries, Finn used to be part of an organisation that examined demons, and Spike…"

He sighed slightly as he glanced over at the 'ghost', who was looking uncertainly at SG-1's commanding officer. "Don't suppose you'd care to provide me with some evidence that the guy was telling the truth about… well, what you _are_, would you?"

For a moment, Spike remained silent, his arms folded as he stared critically at Mitchell, until, finally, he spoke.

"If I tell you what _you _want to know about the situation, any chance you'll be answering _my _questions about this place?" he asked, indicating the base with a wave of his hand.

Mitchell shrugged slightly. "Finn said we could trust you to keep it a secret; I'm hoping you'll respect that," he said by way of explanation. "In any case, we checked with Landry about the situation, and he's willing to let us tell you about what we're dealing with here so long as you answer our questions and don't go anywhere without telling us."

For a moment, Spike was silent, clearly turning over the proposal in his mind, until he spoke again.

"Fair enough; it could be a lot harsher," he said in a casual manner. Stepping back slightly so that he could be seen by all five members of SG-1, he lowered his hands and stared directly at them before his gaze settled on the two scientists.

"You wanted to know what I am?" he said, looking over at Sam and Daniel. "Here you are."

With that said, right before their eyes, Spike's forehead bulged out, his eyes became a glowing gold, and his teeth elonogated to the point of being better described as 'fangs' than 'teeth'.

"Oh my God…" Sam whispered, staring incredulously at the man before her. "What… what _are _you?"

"Vampire, to put it simply," Spike replied, shrugging casually as his face returned to normal. "Don't worry; got a soul over a year ago, and haven't even really fed on humans- apart from these incidents when I was under somebody else's control- for the past four years anyway-"

"I'm sorry; you're a _vampire_?" Daniel asked, looking incredulously at Spike. "They actually _exist_? I mean, I knew that variations on the vampire myth can be found in pretty much any culture in the world, but… actual _vampires_? The walking dead, drinking blood, turning into bats _vampires_?"

"Well, the bat thing's actually a load of dingo's kidneys- indeed, _anything _you've heard about vamps changing our shape's based on a load of crap- but, that aside, you're pretty much right," Spike said, as he raised his hands in a calming gesture. "Look, if you're worried about me trying to kill you when I've got my body back, don't; I've pretty much gone off humans the last few years, ever since I got my soul back."

"Finn can vouch for that, apparently," Vala put in, a slight smile on her face as she looked at her two friends. "It turns out that Spike's been spending the last few years working with a group of independent demon hunters to deal with demon-related problems in their home town, to the extent that… well, as we already know, he _did _die using the amulet to stop an Ascended being- sort of- that regarded itself as basically being evil personified; I think it's pretty clear that he's on _our _side-"

"Sorry to interrupt, but can I just clarify something here?" Sam interjected, looking in confusion at Spike. "You said you… got your soul back? What does your _soul_ have to do with anything?"

"Well, according to the admittedly rather hunky-looking- if you like that sort of thing- Captain Finn," Vala put in, grinning slightly at Spike as she spoke, "vampires are normally a demon who's set up a new 'home' for themselves in a human corpse, but with Spike's soul restored to him, he keeps all the fine details such as a conscience and the ability to feel guilty over what he's done before."

"Tell me about it; spent three weeks raving mad in a basement after I got the sodding thing back…" Spike sighed, as he looked over at Vala before raising a hand to stop Sam as she opened her mouth. "And _don't _ask why I got it back in the first place; long story going nowhere, quite frankly, and it's about time for _you _guys to answer _my _questions about this place and what you do here anyway. If you're _not _connected to the Initiative, why'd you take _this_-" he emphasised his words by waving one hand through a nearby desk as he continued to stare at them, "as though it's something that happens all the time?"

After exchanging glances with their teammates, Sam and Daniel sighed and looked at Spike.

"OK, we'll tell you; just remember, what we're about to tell you is meant to be _secret_, so you can't tell _anyone _else about it," Sam said, looking critically at Spike.

"Lips are sealed; I won't tell a soul _anything _they're not meant to know," Spike promised, miming a zipping motion over his lips as he looked at them.

"'Sides," he added dismissively, shrugging in a nonchalant manner as he looked around the room at the various SG-1 members, "why would I tick you guys off when you're the only people who can actually _help _me get out of this mess?"

"Fair point," Daniel admitted, as he and Sam exchanged glances before turning back to Spike. "OK, to begin at the beginning, over five thousand years ago, Earth was visited by a race of parasitic aliens known as the Goa'uld, who took several human beings to use as hosts and subsequently used the advanced technology at their disposal to pose as gods and convince the rest of humanity to serve them as slaves."

Despite his internal promise _not _to be surprised by anything they had to tell him- after all, after spending over a century as a vampire, what could _humans _know that would surprise _him_?- Spike blinked in surprise.

"_Aliens_?" he said, looking at Daniel incredulously. "You mean actual _aliens_? As in little green men from outer _space_, flying around in spaceships, zapping each other with laser weapons, honest-to-sodding-whoever's-up-there _aliens_?"

"Well, in their natural state the Goa'uld resemble eyeless, scaleless snakes- we haven't actually encountered a single _green _race in all our travels- but that's essentially accurate," Daniel replied. "However, they do _have _spaceships- as a matter of fact, the pyramids were actually originally built as landing platforms for their spaceships, and various aspects of Egyptian culture were based on their technology- the Egyptian tradition of burying pharaohs in a sarcophagus was inspired by the Goa'uld technology they used to heal their host's injuries-"

"Jackson, can we stick to the _relevant _facts?" Mitchell interjected, albeit with a slight grin on his face at his friend's evident enthusiasm for the subject they were discussing.

"Oh, right," Daniel said, shaking his head apologetically- Sam briefly smiling slightly at the sight of Daniel in his classic 'research/explanation' mode- before he turned back to look at Spike. "Anyway, at some point in the past- we're not entirely sure _when_- there was a mass uprising on Earth, and the Goa'uld were driven away, with pretty much all reference to them in our history being as good as lost."

"The only thing they left behind was the Stargate," Sam put in, taking up the story for her friend. "Composed of a non-terrestrial mineral known as naquadah, and constructed by a race called the Ancients millennia ago, when the correct address is 'dialled' into the Stargate- thanks to another component we call the 'Dial Home Device', or DHD- the Stargate is capable of creating wormholes that allow us to travel to other planets, so long as there's already a Stargate at the planet in question and we've dialled an accurate address. The Stargate was eventually rediscovered at the Giza plateau in 1928 on an archaeological dig, and, after several decades of intermittent research- depending on whether anybody thought something useful would come of it, among other things- we managed to use it to dial an Egyptian-style planet known as Abydos almost ten years ago."

"The team that was sent through encountered the Goa'uld known as Ra- the _de jure _'Supreme Ruler' of the Goa'uld, and apparently the first Goa'uld who came to Earth- but we managed to defeat him by transporting a nuclear bomb onto his ship while he was in orbit," Daniel continued. "Unfortunately, this meant that we attracted the attention of the _other _Goa'uld, who now knew that we were in a position to pose a threat to their rule. Various teams were created to explore the Stargates and acquire advanced technology to fight the Goa'uld. Over the years, we acquired several examples of prominent technology- we've even managed to develop a small fleet of our very own spaceships- until, a couple of years ago, we managed to finally defeat them, exposing them as false gods to the Jaffa, a race of humans who'd been genetically engineered to serve as incubators for larval symbiotes."

"Actually, T. here's one of the Jaffa in question," Mitchell put in, jerking a thumb over at the tall man standing in the corner. "Guy defected to our side on pretty much the first official mission against the Goa'uld, and he's been a loyal member of the team ever since."

"Ah," Spike said, looking back at the Jaffa for a moment before he shrugged slightly. "Well, that explains the itch; got a kind of 'sense' for when people ain't exactly human, you see, and you've been setting it off pretty much since I got here."

"Indeed?" Teal'c stated, looking neutrally back at Spike. "I presume such a talent is another 'perk' of being a vampire?"

"Oh, it's one of 'em," Spike replied, shrugging nonchalantly. "Enhanced strength, senses, speed, healing, ability to sense other people who aren't totally human… it all comes together, really."

After a moment in which Spike seemed to be waiting for Teal'c to elaborate on that 'indeed', the vampire sighed and glanced back in Daniel's direction. "So, where does the First tie into these 'Goa'uld' guys you were talking about? Don't sound that similar to _me_."

"They don't," Sam explained, taking up the story once more. "About a year ago, we accidentally activated an Ancient communication device that caused us to unintentionally make contact with a race of Ascended beings known as the Ori- we'd already encountered Ascended beings in the form of the Ancients, who long ago evolved into a state of pure energy to escape a plague that was sweeping our galaxy."

"Not bad," Spike muttered, nodding slightly in grudging approval as he looked curiously at Sam. "So, what's the big deal about these 'Ori' if they're in another universe?"

"They learned that humanoid life exists in this galaxy," Daniel explained, taking up the story once more. "With this knowledge, the Ori subsequently sent armies of their followers through to our galaxy in an attempt to convert us all to a religion where we worship them as gods; anyone who resists them is destroyed. As to _why _they want us to worship them…"

"Put simply," Vala added, deciding to make her own little contribution to the tale they were telling Spike, "the Ori discovered long ago that they acquire greater power when they're worshipped by humans; the more people who genuinely think they're gods, the more power they acquire, until, finally, they have the strength to confront the Ancients in our galaxy- a head-to-head battle in the Ascended planes of reality- and wipe them out once and for all."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding briefly as he looked around at the team before sighing and looking back at them. "So, basically, you're up against a bunch of would-be gods who want to enslave/destroy everybody else in the galaxy?"

"Pretty much," Vala replied, shrugging as though such a career was totally unremarkable.

"All right then," Spike said, clasping his hands together as he looked purposefully around at the rest of SG-1, "where do I sign up?"

The team blinked in surprise.

"Sorry; you want to join up?" Mitchell asked, looking in surprise at Spike.

"Well, why not?" Spike retorted, shrugging casually as he looked at his new friend. "I mean, I'm here, I'm unlikely to be going anywhere until I've got my body back, and I've got a fair amount of combat experience; no offence, bout you'd be _idiots _to pass up the kind of combat experience I'd bring to this party."

Exchanging uncertain glances with each other, the rest of SG-1 finally turned to look inquiringly at Mitchell, who sighed in frustration.

"Up to me to make the final call, eh?" he said, sighing slightly as he looked back at Spike, arms folded as he uncertainly studied the vampire before nodding in agreement. "OK; we'll give it a shot. I'll have Landry attend to the paperwork once the next mission's over."

"Next mission?" Spike asked, looking curiously at Daniel. "You mean, your next mission through that… Stargate thing?"

"Yeah, but don't get excited; it's just a recon mission of an apparently uninhabited planet," Daniel said, shrugging slightly as he looked over at his teammates. "Anyway, we'd better get going; might as well let Landry know about your request before we have to leave."

"No need, Doctor Jackson," a voice said from the door of the lab. "I already heard it."

Glancing back at the door, SG-1 were only slightly surprised to see General Landry standing the door, looking at the 'ghost' in the middle of the room in a slightly uncertain manner.

"So," Landry said as he walked into the room, keeping his gaze fixed on Spike as he walked, "you're a vampire who stopped eating humans and started fighting against a bunch of demons?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Spike replied, casually folding his arms as he looked at the General. "Got a problem with that?"

For a moment, the two men just stared at each other, and then Landry sighed and shrugged.

"Well, given that I've already given a former space thief a position here after she tried to nick our flagship, and we've had Teal'c employed here for almost a decade without any problems, I suppose I can't really say 'no' to an intangible vampire," the general said, looking critically at Spike. "You'll have to pass a psychological evaluation before you become a permanent team member, I hope you realise; I'm not sending you through that Stargate- assuming it's safe to do that, I might add- until I'm sure you're psychologically capable of dealing with what you'd face out there."

Spike rolled his eyes slightly at that, but gave a consenting nod nevertheless.

"So, what are you doing here anyway, sir?" Mitchell asked, looking inquiringly at their commanding officer. "Time for us to be on our way through the 'gate?"

"Sorry, Colonel Mitchell," Landry said, looking apologetically at SG-1's commander, "but something else has come up that takes more immediate priority than the mission; General O'Neill put in a request for SG-1 to have a meeting with, and I quote, 'an old if geeky friend' about something he's working on."

"What?" Daniel said, looking incredulously at Landry. "_Jack_ wants us to have a _meeting _with somebody instead of a gate trip?"

"Uh… 'Jack' being…?" Spike asked, raising a confused hand.

"The old commander of SG-1 and the SGC before he was transferred to the Pentagon," Landry answered briefly before looking back at Daniel. "To answer your question, Doctor Jackson, he doesn't _want _you to do it, per se, it's mainly a case of _somebody _has to do it, and you're all the best qualified for the job."

Sighing slightly, Landry glanced over at Daniel, Sam and Teal'c, shrugging in an offhand manner as he looked at the SGC's three longest-standing members. "Look, you remember that _Wormhole X-Treme_ show that was aired a few years back?"

"Oh, that old thing?" Spike interjected from where he was currently slouched against the wall, looking slightly sulkily in Landry's direction. "Checked that out once when it was on; thought it was the greatest load of tripe I'd ever seen… and I'm _including _'Les Mis' in that."

"Les what?" Vala asked, looking in confusion at Spike.

"Something that is _not _relevant to the current topic," Sam said before Spike could reply, looking slightly critically at the vampire before looking back at Landry. "What does _Wormhole _have to do with anything, sir?"

"Well, there's talk of preparing a TV movie based on the series- apparently it attracted a lot of public interest despite its originally poor ratings- so General O'Neill wants you all to check over the script and make sure that everyone's being portrayed in a favourable light," Landry explained as he looked over at his staff. "Don't worry, the gate's not totally prepped yet- some kind of problem with the last dial in, apparently- so you don't need to worry about being late for the mission; I'll let you know when the gate's back up and working."

"Hold on a minute; you're telling me that the dumbest thing I've ever seen- and I'm including _Passions _in that; at least that was so bad it was actually _good_- was based on _this_ whole set-up?" Spike interjected, waving his hand at the walls around him. "What the hell happened to the whole 'secrecy' thing you were telling me about? How did a bloody TV studio even find _out _about all this?"

"Long story short, an alien refuge on Earth gave the original idea to the studio, and the government decided to just leave it alone because it would probably help keep the program secret," Mitchell explained as he glanced over at Spike. "I mean, who'd actually take something _seriously _when it sounds like a TV show?"

Spike nodded.

"Good point," he said simply, before looking back at Daniel, Sam and Landry. "Any chance I could tag along for _this _bit? I mean, sounds like you'll just be staying here for this thing, so it's not like it's a 'hazard' having me hanging around for something like _this_, right?"

For a moment, SG-1 just exchanged uncertain glances with each other and General Landry, each of them clearly weighing up the pros and cons of the suggestion, before Mitchell shrugged and looked back at Landry.

"Well, you gotta admit, he can't exactly do any _harm _in this kind of meeting, can he?" he pointed out to his superior. "I mean, he makes any suggestions that don't work, we can just ignore him, and since he's still working on the whole 'touch' aspect of his new situation, there's no way he can _make _us do anything."

"Oh, _real _fair; rub in the fact that I'm practically useless…" Spike muttered, as Landry nodded in agreement and glanced over at Spike.

"OK, you can come along," he said as he looked at the 'former' vampire.

"Just… try not to be _too _annoying, OK?" Mitchell put in, as the seven of them left the laboratory and began to head back to the briefing room.

"I'll try," Spike shrugged, smiling slightly at the people who he was already beginning to consider to be his new friends. "Can't _promise _anything, though."


	7. Vampires, Movies, and Stargates

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

As the majority of SG-1 moved into the main briefing room- Spike, naturally, walking through the wall rather than through the door; if he was going to be like this on a long-term basis he was going to make the most of it- their eyes instantly fell on the small man sitting at the table of the briefing room, a pile of scripts in front of him as he looked anxiously at the door, standing up and breaking into a grin as Sam, Daniel and Teal'c entered the room.

"Hey there, guys!" he said, walking over to enthusiastically shake their hands, apparently unconcerned about their slight hesitation in responding in kind; he was a nice enough guy, but the man's enthusiasm could sometimes be a little off-putting. "How's things since we last met?"

"Oh… the usual," Daniel replied, shrugging slightly as he indicated Mitchell, Vala and Spike. "Been on a few missions, defeated a few Goa'uld, encountered some new adversaries, recruited some new members… stuff like that, you know."

"Gotcha," the man said, before he turned to Mitchell and smiled warmly at the lieutenant colonel. "So, you're Jack O'Neill's replacement, huh? Martin Lloyd, but you can call me Marty; everybody does."

"Uh… I'm Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell," Mitchell replied, looking somewhat bemusedly at the man before him as he shook the offered hand. "This is Vala Mal Doran- resident former thief- and this is Spike, who's… well, he just got here, really; Landry's working on giving him official clearance to know about everything we do here, so feel free to talk about anything in front of him."

"Oh, you're new?" Marty asked, smiling over at the platinum-haired man as he held out his hand. "Good to meet you; trust me, you're working with some modern-day _legends _right now…"

Spike just stared at the land as though someone had presented him with a piece of modern art; it almost looked as though he had no idea what he was meant to do with it.

"I can't touch that," he said, looking back at Marty. "Or didn't you notice me walking _through _the sodding _wall_ to get here?"

"Oh… uh… I assumed that it was just something you liked to do… y'know, like Kitty Pryde in _X-Men_…" Marty said, looking slightly awkward for a moment before he raised a puzzled eyebrow and studied Spike more closely. "Wait, you mean you're like that all the _time_? How did _that _happen? And how come you aren't falling through the floor?"

"That's a rather long and complicated story that has _nothing _to do with the current issue, Marty; can we just see the scripts you've got for us?" Sam interjected, looking with a mixed expression of apology and frustration as she and the rest of SG-1 sat down around the table. "We may not have much time until the Stargate's ready for us to go through; if we're going to look at these at all, we should probably begin right now."

"Oh… uh… right-o," Marty said, turning back to the table to pass the scripts out among the various members of SG-1. "You guys just… check over the opening scene and tell me what you think of it; I've got a call or two I need to make."

With the last script handed out, he turned around, took his phone out of his pocket, and walked out of the room, leaving the group to look around at each other, shrug, and begin to study the scripts before them. Spike, lacking the ability to sit down or study a script on his own, simply stood at one corner of the table, looking critically at the scripts in Sam and Daniel's hands as the two scientists studied the pages before them.

"Ewoks?" the vampire said after a moment's pause, looking in confusion at the others. "They're having you guys encounter sodding _ewoks_?"

"Actually," Daniel said, turning to look critically at Spike, "the Furlings are meant to be one of the Four Great Races who lived in this galaxy millennia ago- nobody really knows what happened to them- and we're pretty sure they _didn't _look like Ewoks; it's just some 'artistic liberty' the producers are taking for the script."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding slightly.

"It's the _rest _of it that really annoys me," Sam said, indicating the script in frustration. "I mean, we lead the Goa'uld to the Furlings- no matter _how _unintentionally-, and then the entire _planet _blows up in the attack? I mean, forget about it just being disrespectful to the Furlings to believe that they could be defeated that easily; it makes us look… _stupid_."

"You realize it's not actually _us_," Daniel pointed out, looking over at his friend in a manner that Spike took care to pay attention to.

"OK, OK, but it makes the _characters_ look stupid," Sam said, shaking the script in irritation. "I mean, do you really think the best way to introduce the heroes of the story is to show them causing a massive catastrophe?"

"Well," Mitchell said, in a tone of voice that suggested even he wasn't entirely sure about what he was saying, "you've got to open big… catch people's attention… make them think the whole thing is going to be jam-packed."

"Ooh, I love jam," Vala put in, smiling broadly only for the expression to fade as Mitchell, Daniel, Sam and Spike turned to look at her as though she'd suddenly become green and hadn't fully realised it.

"Oh, I get it," she said, smiling awkward. "It's yet another playful twist on words in your 'Earth' language."

"Sorry; in our 'Earth' language?" Spike interjected, looking over at Vala in surprise. "You mean you're not _from _Earth?"

"Of course not; I'm the 'space thief' General Landry mentioned earlier," Vala replied, smiling nonchalantly over at Spike as she spoke. "Didn't you guess?"

"_Damn_…" Spike muttered, as he studied Vala for a moment in a reflective manner. "Gotta admit, you're looking good for someone who didn't come from here; the last sucker I met who wasn't from Earth was a whacked-out indestructible skank who sucked people's brains and turned into a guy at irregular intervals."

Sighing, Mitchell shook his head and turned back to the script before him, although he made a brief note to ask Spike what he'd been talking about with that last comment.

"Look, let's just keep checking this over," he said, as he looked around at the others with a hopeful smile on his face. "C'mon, it'll be fun."

"You know, you say that about everything," Daniel stated, sharing a brief smile with Sam before he sighed as he stared at the script before him. "Come to think of it, why am I even _doing_ this?"

"To make sure that the air force is being properly represented," Landry stated as he walked into his office, looking critically at the team. Daniel raised a hand as though to make a query, but Landry continued by saying "and because general O'Neill has requested you specifically", which proved enough to make Daniel lower his hand and make it into a brief fist.

"Of _course_ he did…" the archaeologist said, sighing in frustration as he sat back in his seat.

"Cheer up, Jackson, willya?" Mitchell asked, smiling encouragingly at his friend. "I mean, how often do we get to give notes on a big Hollywood feature script?

"I believe this is intended to be a television movie," Teal'c pointed out.

"Exactly," Landry said, as he picked up a script and waved it in the air as he looked at the others. "A fictionalized, albeit, slightly ridiculous version of Stargate command is an excellent cover for the real thing in the event of a security leak."

"Plausible deniability," Sam stated, nodding in confirmation.

"I'm sorry, sir; did you say _slightly_ ridiculous?" Daniel asked, prompting another grin from Sam.

"Gotta agree with him there," Spike put in with a slight smile of his own. "There's good-ridiculous- _Monty Python_, natch- and there's just poor-ridiculous- _Shaun of the Dead_, anyone? And so far, this thing's just poor-ridiculous."

Turning to look at Spike, Landry treated the vampire to a harsh glare for a few moments before turning back to look at the rest of SG-1

"You're doing this," he said, in a tone that boded no argument. "You have no choice. Just give the man five minutes. I'll get you out of this when the time comes."

"Um…" Vala put in, raising one hand as she used the other to flick through her copy of the script, "I've been looking through this, and there doesn't seem to be any mention of a…sexy female alien…"

Noting Sam's raised and clearly curious eyebrow, Vala looked indignantly at her fellow female teammate.

"_Anywhere_," she stated, tapping the script in frustration. "I'm not even _in_ this."

"You know," Sam sighed, as she looked around at the others, "the really unbelievable part is that anyone would consider spending millions of dollars on this thing. I mean, seriously, all these writers, and they couldn't come up with anything better?"

"I don't know," Vala said, shrugging slightly. "I've been watching a lot of television lately, and apart from one glaring omission" (Spike doubted there were any prizes for guessing what she was referring to) "it doesn't seem to be that bad."

"Hey; maybe we can make it better," Mitchell put in, smiling hopefully at his friends as he made a few brief notes.

"No… I'm with Sam on this one," Daniel said, shaking his head grimly. "I mean… who makes a movie out of a series that only lasted three episodes?"

"It allegedly performed well on DVD," Teal'c put in, as blunt as ever.

"Yeah, well, I knew some people who could 'act' well in real life and sucked whenever anybody asked them to go onto the stage; just 'cause it does well in one market doesn't mean it'll work in another," Spike interrupted, as he stood in the corner of the room looking critically at the piles of paper spread across the table. "Why the hell that guy thinks something like this could work, I'll _never _know…"

As though he had been 'summoned' by Spike's comment, Marty chose that moment to walk back into the room, talking animatedly into his mobile.

"_No_, I'm not using _any_ shots from the series," he said, apparently unconcerned about the presence of the others. "It's a movie, not a clip show. The budget is the budget. They are a bunch of pencil-pushing, bean-counting idiots. You tell them if they don't like it, I'm going to take it somewhere else."

For a brief moment, he turned away from the table, whispering something into his phone- SG-1 vaguely caught the words 'Not to say that last part', but the full details were inaudible- before he continued speaking in a normal voice. "Yeah, movie, not clip show, is fine. Yeah, I got to go. Yeah."

With that, he hung up, and turned to look apologetically at the team sitting around the table. "Cell coverage is just terrible in here," he said, shrugging apologetically. "How's it going? You done?"

None of the team appeared willing to respond to that statement; Spike just raised an eyebrow as though asking what the hell Marty thought he was doing, Sam fiddled with her pen, Daniel just reached over to drink some of his coffee, while Mitchell and Teal'c just stared at the new arrival.

"Well," Vala said, finally breaking the silence, "it... certainly seems to be packed full of 'jam'."

Martin sighed slightly as he stared up at the ceiling.

"I _knew_ I should have given you my first draft," he said dejectedly. "The… the producer brought in… the other writers."

"I thought you _were _the sodding producer," Spike asked, looking critically at the man before them.

"No-Yeah, the real one," Marty said apologetically, before he sighed and sat down in one of the other chairs. "Uh, look, just… be honest. I… I trust you guys. That's why I'm here. Just tell me what you think."

For a moment, there was silence, broken only by the slight movement of Daniel checking his watch, clearly wondering how long it would be until the Stargate was working.

"Come on," Marty said, looking pleadingly at the group, "you must have _some_ ideas. Don't be afraid. Just pitch them out."

When silence remained in the room, Marty waved a hand promptingly. "We call it spinning," he explained, as he looked around at the team. "Don't worry. No one's going to judge you."

Finally, Mitchell broke the silence.

"OK," he said, as he glanced at his notepad, "for starters, I think you need a strong opening title sequence."

"Are you _serious_?" Marty said, laughing slightly as he looked at the SG-1 commander. "No one does _that_ anymore. You just throw up the title and get on with it."

"Ah," Mitchell said, sighing slightly before a smile suddenly spread across his face as he glanced back at Marty. "Hey, how's about this; I'm running through the SGC corridors, guns blazing, as the entire staff have been turned into… well, _zombies_. I get Walter to dial the Stargate to ditch the tel'chak device- only way to stop the zombie thing- just as he's being eaten in the control room, I'm being backed up to the Stargate surrounding by the undead, and then…"

Raising his hands, Mitchell pointed the fingers out like gun barrels as people had done the world over since the gun was invented, and 'fired' at his teammates, accompanying his actions with a brief 'Bam, bam!' as he did so.

"Look," Marty said, looking uncomfortably at Mitchell, "uh… no offence, but zombies have been done to death."

As though realising what he'd just said, he appeared to inwardly curse before continuing to speak. "Uh… no… pun intended."

"Good, 'cause it would've sucked anyway," Spike interjected.

"Besides," Marty continued, as though the 'ghost' hadn't spoken in the first place, "this is science fiction, not horror."

"Did I mention the tel'chak device?" Mitchell asked, looking inquiringly at Marty. " "'Cause that's what turned them into zombies."

"The wha?" Spike asked, looking over at Daniel in confusion.

"It's a piece of technology constructed by the Ancients- the people who built the Stargate- that can heal people so extensively that it can- theoretically, at least; the version we discovered apparently had a few design problems and we've never discovered a more efficient version- bring them back from the dead," Daniel explained as he looked at Spike.

"Ah," Spike said simply, tilting his head to one side as he looked at the archaeologist. "What kind of-"

Spike's question, however, was interrupted by the ringing of Marty's cell phone.

"Oh, sorry," the man said, smiling apologetically at the team as he pulled the phone out and put it to his ear. "Go for Marty. Oh…hey…Charlie. What's up?"

Noting the inquiring looks he was drawing from the rest of the people in the room, he briefly whispered to them, "It's the studio", before returning to the phone in his hand.

"What kind of problem?" he asked as he walked out of the door, leaving SG-1 and spike to sit in the briefing room staring at the script.

"Just out of curiosity," Daniel asked, turning to look at Mitchell, an action that was soon copied by the rest of SG-1, "what was the _rest_ of the team doing while your character was fighting the zombies?"

Fortunately for Mitchell, he was saved from answering the question by Marty's return to the room.

"Son of a _bitch_!" he groaned, as he slammed a frustrated hand against the wall.

"Studio executives, huh?" Mitchell asked, seizing on the chance to talk about something else.

"What?" Marty asked, looking in confusion at the SG-1 commander before realisation dawned and he shook his head. "Oh… No, Charlie…no…he's a great guy. He's the only one I trust."

"So what's the problem then?" Spike inquired.

"Our lead backed out." Marty groaned. "I mean… How am I supposed to tell a story without my lead character?"

"Easy," Mitchell put in, smiling. "Just bring in a character to replace him."

Silence settled over the room as the rest of the group stared critically at him.

"What?" he said, prompting a despairing shake of the head from Sam.

"You guys _have _to help me," Marty protested as he looked at the team. "I mean, how can I keep the main character in the story without actually having the actor who plays him?"

"Well…" Sam said, shrugging slightly, "you could have the other characters refer to him all the time… maybe… get him on the phone once in a while."

"Oh, yeah, right," Marty said, laughing slightly before his expression once again became more anxious. "I mean… something _cool_, like…um… face-switching or body-swapping?

"As if anyone would believe _that_," Vala laughed, prompting a brief glare from Daniel that prompted Spike to make a mental note to ask about that as soon as he could.

"Come _on_," Marty protested, looking hopefully at the team, "you guys_ must_ have some real-life experiences I can draw on."

"Oh…" Sam put in, as inspiration seemed to hit her. "Well, there _was_ that time that Colonel O'Neill was invisible."

"He what?" Vala asked, looking in surprise at her teammate.

"Yeah, he was bombarded by the particle field being emanated by the cloaking generator of a ship we were on during a mission, resulting in him being rendered totally invisible," Sam explained; given how much this reminded him of something he'd seen in _Star Trek_- the new prequel series, to be exact- Spike wasn't sure if she was being serious or not. "It got more than slightly frustrating, really; he was never there when we thought we were talking to him, he sneaked into… rooms where he wasn't wanted… and generally took the opportunity to play little jokes on the rest of us in the process."

"Mmm…" Marty said, nodding thoughtfully for a moment, before he finally shook his head. "It _might_ feel like kind of a… cheat."

"Maybe it's best just not to mention the guy at all," Mitchell added.

"Yeah..." Marty agreed, before shrugging and looking apologetically at Sam. "Besides, invisibility can be very powerful. You might not want to open that can of worms; you don't want your heroes to become _too_ powerful."

"Well… you could always invent some negative side-effects," Sam pointed out. "That's how we talked Colonel O'Neill into becoming visible again.

"Yeah, tell me about it; nothing that cool _ever _comes for free," Spike snorted from off to the side. "I… knew… a girl who became invisible once; for some reason it would've caused her body to fall apart if she'd stayed like that for too long."

"Really?" Marty asked, looking over at Spike with renewed eagerness. "You mean that stuff actually _works_? Can you remember anything about how the process actually worked? Could you-"

"OK, that's it," Landry said, walking into the room before Marty could even finish his sentence. "SG-1, you are cleared to leave."

"_Thank_ you!" Daniel sighed as he jumped up, looking in relief at Landry. "See what you can do about getting Spike official clearance while we're away; we'll be back as soon as the mission's over."

"They can't leave!" Marty yelled as SG-1 walked out of the room. "They haven't finished reading my script!"

"Funny thing; last time I checked, _he _was in charge here," Spike put in with a slight smirk.

"Quite," Landry nodded, before looking critically over at Spike. "And don't interrupt me; just because you're a 'ghost' doesn't give you the right to be insubordinate."

"Sorry, 'boss'," Spike said nonchalantly as he jerked a thumb at the departing SG-1. "By the way, where are they going? Daniel mentioned it was a 'recon' mission, but is there anything else to it?"

"No, it's just a recon mission," Landry replied, shrugging slightly as he looked at Spike. "The only special thing about it- according to Colonel Mitchell, at least; I haven't actually checked yet to see if he's being accurate- is that it's his two-hundredth trip through the Stargate; that's apparently counting trips back and forth through the Stargate, rather than just actual _missions_."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding slightly before he raised an eyebrow. "By the way, since I'll probably be hanging around for a while, where _is _this 'Stargate' thing you keep talking about anyway?"

"Oh, you want to see it?" Landry said, smiling casually at Spike as he walked over to touch a button on the side of one wall of the room. "Just look this way."

Before Spike could ask what Landry meant by that, what he'd previously assumed to be a solid wall literally _rose _up towards the ceiling, leaving a large glass window through which Spike could see an underground room of significant size.

Right in the middle of the room, with a metal ramp leading up to it, was a large ring, made of some material Spike couldn't immediately identify. Almost large enough to reach the top of the room, it had seven triangle-like shapes positioned along its outer rim, with small symbols that Spike couldn't quite identify from this distance, drawn on the inner ring. As he watched the Stargate before him, the inner ring began to spin, almost as though it was 'powering up', a theory that was reinforced when some of the triangle-like shapes began to light up (Accompanied by a voice yelling stuff like "Chevron one encoded!")…

Then, right in front of Spike, the gate suddenly powered down, just as Spike had noticed his new 'acquaintances' (It was still too early to think of them as friends) standing in front of it, Mitchell looking eagerly at the gate before him.

"Eh?" the 'ghost' said, looking inquiringly over at Landry. "What's that all about?"

"Problems with the Stargate," Landry said, shrugging apologetically at Spike. "Sorry; looks like you'll have to wait a bit longer to see the thing in action."

"Oh, great!" Marty yelled, jumping up from his seat, prompting brief glares from Spike and Landry. "I mean… well, now they _have _to look at my script!"

"Joy…" Spike muttered as he slumped against the wall- or rather, _tried _to slump; he nearly fell through the thing again before he regained his balance. "I'm sure they're just going to _love _that."

* * *

A few minutes later, as work on the script continued while Sam studied the Stargate's control systems, Spike's prediction was rapidly looking far more accurate than even he could have guessed; having just read a scene where the fictional version of the team had managed to escape a veritable army of killer cyborgs _and _alien warriors, Spike had only one question to ask the guy sitting at the table before him.

"How the sodding hell did they escape from _that_?" the vampire once known as William the Bloody asked, voicing the opinion of his new friends before any of them could even speak; he may not know much about what these people tackled on a regular basis, but even he doubted numbers like that could ever be easily dealt with.

"Isn't it obvious?" Marty asked hopefully.

"Even if the valley _wasn't_ filled with Jaffa," Mitchell stated grimly, "we could never have made it to the gate and dialled out in under 10 seconds."

"Good!" Marty smiled, clapping his hands together once as he nodded eagerly at Mitchell. "See, _that's_ why we're here. So, what do you think? 30 seconds? Maybe not such a round number. How about 38?"

"What difference does it make?" Daniel said as he looked at the man in front of him. "I mean, it's not like you're going to have an _actual_ ticking clock on the screen."

"That's brilliant!" Marty yelled, pointing at the archaeologist.

"OK, I've changed my earlier opinion; _now _it's stupid-ridiculous," Spike interjected.

"Trust me," Marty said, smiling in what Spike assumed was a reassuring manner at him. "Jeopardy plus ticking clock is box office. It's the emc2 Of the entertainment world. Ask any executive."

"Except I think you've replaced jeopardy with certain death," Vala stated.

"Oh, come _on_," Marty said, looking dejectedly at the team, "you guys have escaped situations more dire than this before."

To Spike's surprise, Mitchell nodded.

"He has a point," he said simply.

"Care to give an example?" Spike asked critically.

"Well, there _was _the time these guys had to destroy two Goa'uld motherships while they were in orbit of Earth _and _get off the ship alive," Mitchell explained nonchalantly. "I'd call that pretty more extreme."

"Ah," Spike stated; he knew it was stupid, but he genuinely couldn't think of anything _else _he could say.

He had to admit, that _was _somewhat more serious; at least in the situation in the _script_ the guys could have just tried to hide and wait for another opportunity to try to get away…

OK, so that wasn't likely to have _happened_- from what he'd read of the bad guys they faced Spike doubted they'd have stopped looking just because they couldn't find them at first- but it would still have been at least an _option_.

"Why not just show the actual escape?" Daniel interjected.

"Oh, no, no, no," Marty said, shaking his head resolvedly. "You can't give away too much too early. It'll step on the ending."

"Maybe if my character doesn't say, "this is a problem"," Mitchell suggested, raising his hand. "He _could_ say something like, "this should be easy"."

"How many times do I have to _tell_ you?" Marty asked, looking in frustration at Mitchell. "It's not _you_; Colonel Danning is based on Colonel _O'Neill_."

"What, the guy who asked them all to _do _this thing in the first place?" Spike asked, raising an inquiring eyebrow as he looked at Marty.

Before Marty could reply, Sam came up the stairs from the control room, shrugging helplessly as she looked at Mitchell, clearly anticipating his question before he'd even asked it.

"No luck with getting the Stargate working again; I'm sorry," she said apologetically as she turned to look at the rest of the team. "We're running another diagnostic, but right now, we're stumped. Power's getting through to the capacitors, but for some reason, the charge isn't holding. That's causing the control crystal to send feedback into the interface and reset the programming code of the base computer's dialling protocol."

"Uh… can we have that in English?" Spike asked hopefully; he hadn't heard _that _much technobabble since… hell, _ever_; not even Willow in her 'geeky' stage had talked that much gibberish.

"_Whoa_!" Marty smiled eagerly. "_That_ was _awesome_! Say that again!"

"No," Sam stated simply.

"Oh," Marty groaned, before smiling as inspiration struck him. Uh, everybody, take five. I've got to get that down before I forget it." As Sam headed down stairs, Marty continued to mutter the phrase under his breath- sounding to Spike like he was getting some of the details wrong- only to be interrupted by Vala walking over to him.

"Hey," the former thief said to him. "Forget about the techno-talk; no one's really interested in it."

"Uh… you're an alien, right?" Marty said as he looked uncertainly at her.

"Exactly," Vala said, nodding at him. "Trust me, I know _just_ what this movie needs."

"Look," Marty stated as he looked critically at her, "no offence, but you're from another planet; how would _you_ know what sci-fi fans from _Earth_ would be interested in?"

"Aren't you _also_ an alien?" Vala pointed out.

"Yeah, but I've been here quite a while," Marty said, shrugging dismissively.

"Yeah, sure," Vala said, nodding briefly at him. "Look, I think I know a good story when I hear one. Don't you want this movie to appeal to a _broad_ range of people?"

"From Earth," Marty stated bluntly as he looked at Vala.

"Look," Vala insisted, "I have had all _kinds _of fabulous adventures, _none_ of which have been classified by the Air Force; you can feel free to use _any _of them for the plot of your movie. How's this; I was in a stolen cargo ship on my way home when a solar flare from a nearby star wreaked havoc with my navigation system, and I was forced to crash-land on the nearest planet."

"OK…" Marty said, nodding thoughtfully as he listened to her.

"In a bizarre twist of fate," Vala continued, "I crashed right on top of the Goa'uld who ruled that planet, which was fortunate because my ship was too badly damaged to repair, and I needed help. The local villagers were very grateful. They introduced me to a lovely fair-haired Tok'ra who had been hiding out on the planet. She told me the legend of a powerful ascended being who supposedly lived in some distant, far-off mountains-"

"Hold on," Spike interjected, looking in frustration at Vala. "That's not something _you_ did; that's the sodding _Wizard of Oz_!"

"Oh…you've seen that one?" Vala asked, looking over at Spike with raised eyebrows.

"Uh, yeah…" Marty said, looking gratefully at Spike before he picked up a pad of paper and made a few quick notes. "Look, as far as the movie goes, how's this for an idea? Your characters are discussing a problem with the Stargate, they try to get it working, something goes wrong- maybe the thing starts drawing too much energy from the capacitors-, you all do your best, but the doors are electrified, you're in lockdown, the mountain blows up _just _as a code red evacuation is declared…"

Setting his pen down, Marty smiled casually at the staring faces around him as he folded his hands behind his head, "…and _that_ is the end of Act Two."

Daniel blinked.

"The mountain...blows up?" he said incredulously.

"_No_ possible hope for survival," Marty said, grinning broadly. "Cool, huh? I just wrote it based on what's going on with the gate. I love it when art imitates life."

"Hang on..." Mitchell commented, as he glanced at the script, "according to this thing, we're all still _alive _at the beginning of Act Three."

"Oh, I just haven't fixed that part yet," Marty explained nonchalantly. "I'm thinking I can back-sell it and say you were beamed out at the last second."

"Beamed out?" Spike said incredulously. "What is this, sodding _Star Trek_? I thought you guys used the sodding Stargate to get about, not bloody _spaceships_!"

"Well, we've _got _spaceships, we just don't use them that much for actual travel…" Sam explained, before she shook her head and turned to look critically at Marty. "And isn't it _too_ convenient that there _happened _to be a spaceship near enough to beam us out _just _at the last minute?"

"Not if you hang a lantern on it," Marty replied simply.

"Eh?" Spike stated. "What does a sodding lantern have to do with anything?"

"It's a writer's term," Marty replied nonchalantly. "Another character points out how convenient it is; Dr. Levant can say, '_Wow, that was great timing_'…"

He shrugged dismissively. "That way the audience knows I intended for it to be convenient, and we move on."

"Really?" Mitchell stated sceptically.

"OK…" Marty said, looking sheepishly down at the script, "where were we?"

"Scene 24," Teal'c said grimly.

"Oh, great, one of my favourite scenes," Marty said with a broad smile. "Go ahead."

"Well," Vala said casually, "interior bridge… the crews man their stations… One of the crew reports that the singularity is about to implode… Weapons are ordered to be put at maximum… a solar flare is heading for the ship…"

"Hold on a sodding minute," Spike stated grimly, "is this script for that _Wormhole X-Treme _thing or is it sodding _Star Trek_?"

"What's wrong with it?" Marty asked in a nonchalant manner.

"Spike has a point; I mean, 'The singularity is about to explode'?" Sam stated sceptically. "_Everything_ about that statement is wrong."

"How exactly is having weapons at maximum going to help the situation?" Daniel added, his voice practically dripping with sarcasm.

"The audience isn't going to know the difference," Marty said casually. "They _love_ 'weapons at maximum'."

"Is that your solution to everything?" Spike stated sarcastically as he stared at Marty. "When you're stuck for a plot, have something blow up? How the hell you ever wrote _anything_ that somebody liked, I'll _never _know…"

"I too do not understand why everything in this script must inevitably explode," Teal'c put in.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Spike put in, glancing critically at Martin. "I've been in explosions myself once or twice; it's cool to watch, but there's no fun to be had in actually being _in _them."

"Look," Marty said, apparently ignoring Spike's comment about being actually _in _explosions, "you guys may all know how things really work out there in the galaxy, but I know the film business. Explosions make great trailers. Simple fact."

Once again, Spike raised his eyebrows slightly as he saw Sam and Daniel exchange a look and a smile with each other; if there wasn't _something _going on between the two of them, he'd be _very _surprised.

"More explosions, better trailer," Marty continued. "Better trailer, more viewers-"

Whatever he'd been about to say was interrupted by his cellphone ringing again.

"Yeah…" he said, reaching into his pocket and pressing the button to accept the call, "Go for Marty. Oh, hey, Nora… What?" he asked, his eyes widening in frustration. "That's _ridiculous_. Tell them to stop panicking. We're gonna sign him. Don't worry. I already put in a call in to his manager. We'll get back to you. Yeah. Bye."

With that, he hung up the call and looked apologetically at the team.

"Trouble with Nora?" Spike said, smirking slightly at the man before him.

If this was what the motion picture business was like, he hoped he _never _got his own movie; there were some things that should just be left alone, really.

"No; Nora- she's _great_," Marty explained, before he groaned before slumping down in his chair. "But since Nick Marlowe is holding out, one of the new junior executives at the network has suggested we re-cast the whole movie with younger, edgier versions of the team. Can you imagine that?"

"Mmm…" Daniel mused slightly as he looked up slightly, before shaking his head.

"No," he said simply.

"Uh-uh," Carter agreed, shaking her head.

"I've only just got here, and even I can guess that an idea like that would just be _majorly _stupid," Spike stated bluntly as he glared at Marty.

"Nope," Mitchell stated simply.

For a moment, Marty just sat there as Teal'c stared grimly at him, until he finally stood up.

"I need a latte," he said simply as he headed for the exit.

"Look," Vala asked, standing up and moving to follow Marty, "how about this one? We were in a cloaked cargo ship on a simple, three-hour reconnaissance mission, when—"

"Oh, now you're ripping off _Gilligan's Island_?" Spike groaned as he looked at her.

Vala blinked.

"You got _that_ from 'three-hour reconnaissance mission'?" she said sceptically as she looked at the vampire.

"At least try something a _bit _more obscure…" Spike sighed as he looked at the alien thief.

"Oh, OK," Vala said casually. "How about this; we're on a living spaceship-"

"Oh, now you're trying _Farscape_?" Spike groaned. "Can't you at least make _some _effortto come up with something on your own?"

Before Marty could reply, his cell phone beeped.

"Oh, for crying out loud, what _now_?" he groaned as he pulled out the phone, red the message, and groaned.

"Oh, give me a break!" he said, sighing as he walked back over to sit beside the others. "I just a got a text message from the studio. The foreign distributor went bankrupt; they're slashing my budget.

"You got that in a_ text_ message?" Sam said sceptically.

"This _totally_ screws up the end of act three!" Marty said, apparently ignorant of what she'd just asked him.

"What happens at the end of act three?" Mitchell put in.

"With these cuts… not much." Marty sighed, as he slumped back into his chair. "Act three just… _ends_."


	8. Jack O'Neill

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

_God_… Spike groaned as he slumped against the wall- or rather, _tried _to slump against the wall; if he actually _did _slump against the thing he'd probably just fall through it- and glanced over at the group of people sitting around the table studying the script for what Spike was rapidly becoming convinced was the dumbest movie he'd ever heard of in his life.

_What the Hell was I _thinking_, coming along to this thing_? he sighed, as Sam walked back into the room from some lower level where they apparently kept all the equipment that kept that dumb 'Stargate' thing doing whatever it was it did to link up to other planets. _I haven't been _this _bored since Ol' One-Eye's would-be wedding last year; at least _then _the demon guests gave me some _hope _that things would get more interesting_!

"Problem?" Vala suddenly asked, breaking into Spike's train of thought and drawing his attention back to the admittedly rather hot brunette now standing in front of him.

"Just a bit bored, luv; nothing major," Spike replied bluntly as he continued to study the room before him. "This whole thing's just getting a bit tedious; nothing serious."

"Yeah, I have to agree with you there; there really _isn't _that much in this movie," Vala replied, before a thoughtful expression crossed her face as she glanced up at Sam. "Hey, just a suggestion, but if you all want this to be more accurate, why don't you just give him your mission files?"

"They're classified," Sam retorted bluntly as she walked over to join the spectral vampire and the ex-space-thief.

"Uh… no offence intended," Spike pointed out, looking critically over at Sam, "but since nobody's going to _believe _this crap anyway, what's the harm in giving him something a bit more believable to base his story on?

"_Spike_," Sam said, looking in frustration at the vampire, "firstly, we can't just give _anyone _access to the mission files- there's no guarantee that some people wouldn't be able to put two and two together and realise that what they're seeing isn't totally fiction; not _all _of our activities occurred exclusively on other planets, even if the stuff on Earth never attracts _much _attention- and secondly, do you even know how many mission files there are?"

"One thousand, two hundred and sixty-three," Mitchell put in from one side, a slight smile on his face as he looked in their direction. "Hopefully going up to sixty-_four_ by the end of the day."

"Actually," Daniel put in, smiling slightly over at Sam and Teal'c as the three of them turned to look at Mitchell, "it's one thousand, two hundred and sixty-four _already_."

"Nope, it's sixty-_three_," Mitchell stated confidently. "I'm pretty sure that's right; I've read all the files recently."

"Actually," Sam added, a slight smile on her face, "you _haven't_ read file 30185."

"30185?" Spike said, looking in confusion over at the astrophysicist. "What the hell's so special about that one?"

"We can't tell you," Daniel said apologetically, before turning to Mitchell. "And I was including you when I said that, Mitchell; sorry."

"What do you _mean_ you can't tell me?" Mitchell protested, standing up to look Daniel in the eyes as he spoke. "I mean, Spike I can get- the man's still new, after all, even if he _has _been vouched for by an independent witness with no reason to screw us around- but I've got the highest security clearance known to mankind. _What is 30185_?"

"We were sworn to secrecy," Sam said simply.

"Oh, _secrecy_?" Spike snorted as he glanced over at Sam. "What, you can let _me _know about a big stone ring that lets you go to other planets, but you can't tell _him _about a single bloody file about a mission _through _aforementioned ring when _you're _the ones who brought it up in the first place?"

"Sorry, but we promised," Sam said, shrugging slightly before a slight frown crossed her face and she turned to look back at Spike. "By the way, the Stargate's not made of stone; it's made of a non-Earth element known as naquadah which plays an important role in most alien technology-"

"OK, not interested in _that _kind of crap; I just want to know about this file you mentioned," Spike interrupted, looking inquiringly between Sam and Daniel. "Any chance you'd be prepared to fill _me _in?"

"Or maybe me?" Vala asked, smiling over at Daniel.

"Oh, yeah, we can tell you," Daniel replied casually, prompting an excited grin from Vala.

"Well…" Sam began, looking between Vala and Spike as she spoke, "it has to do with the time that the gate sent us back to 1969-"

"Hold on a minute," Spike said, looking over incredulously at Sam. "That thing lets you travel in _time_?"

"It's an imprecise art at best, Spike," Sam said, rolling her eyes slightly as she looked back at the vampire. "It only works if we dial the Stargate at the precise moment of a solar flare on Earth's sun and we're dialling an address that would take us close to the planet; the solar flare basically 'disrupts' the Stargate system and causes the wormhole to come out at a different location in time on the planet of origin. It's only happened to us once- we were sent back to 1969 for a couple of weeks during the early days of the program- and we have no real desire to go through it again; even if we could somehow predict a solar flare to send us back in time to a specific date, the risks of changing history the wrong way are just too great for us to bother trying it."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding briefly before sighing and sticking his hands in his pockets once more. "So, no chance of me nipping back a few months to stop myself being turned into the vampire Casper, huh?"

Daniel shook his head. "Sorry, Spike; it's just not going to happen," he said, looking apologetically at his new friend.

"Getting back to this file…" Mitchell commented, looking critically over at Sam, Daniel and Spike, "the time-travel trip can't have anything to do with me; I wasn't even _born_ till a year later."

"Actually," Daniel said, a small smile on his face as he glanced over at the rest of the team, "it was _exactly_ nine months before you were born."

Mitchell blinked in surprise at the implications of that statement.

"What?" he said incredulously.

"You have to remember, it _was_ the 60's," Sam said, grinning at him.

"Oh, don't get me started on the bloody sixties," Spike groaned, clutching his head in one hand and nearly leaning back against the wall before he stopped himself; he'd rather not fall through the thing, thanks. "I drank a guy at Woodstock- this was during my evil phase, I'd like to make clear- and spent the next few hours watching my hand move; I do _not _want to have to deal with _that _kind of crap again…"

"_Getting back on topic_," Daniel said, glaring briefly over at Spike before turning to Mitchell with a slight smile, "didn't you ever wonder why Jack's always taken an interest in your life?"

"Jack?" Mitchell said, looking at the archaeologist in surprise. "O'Neill?"

"Indeed," Teal'c said simply.

"Do you remember when you were chosen for the 302 program even though you didn't think you should get in?" Sam continued, smiling slightly teasingly at Mitchell as she spoke. "How about when you were chosen for SG-1?"

"Wait a minute, are you saying this 'Jack' guy- and we _are _talking about the guy who used to be your boss before he got promoted out of here, right?- is _actually _the proud father of Cam here?" Spike asked, looking between Daniel and Mitchell with a frustrated glare in his eyes. "I don't know whether to be wowed or annoyed; I always thought that whole idea of your parents coming from the future in time travel movies was just plain _stupid_…"

"Hmm," Teal'c said briefly, as he smiled over at Mitchell. The lieutenant colonel studied Teal'c's expression thoughtfully for a moment, and then finally shook his head and grinned.

"Oh, I'm being punk'd, aren't I?" he said, a slight smirk on his face.

"We honestly can't tell you about 30185," Sam said simply.

"OK…" Mitchell groaned, slumping back into his chair, a look on his face that made it clear to Spike that this wasn't the end of the matter as far as the lieutenant-colonel was concerned.

"Well, if _your_ files are out, maybe you could use some stuff from _my_ life to give him some ideas?" Spike said, looking inquiringly over at Sam and Daniel. "You know, make the 'gate a portal to a world of demons, Daniel's the occult expert, Teal'c's the bad-guy-turned-good-due-to-a-curse, Sam's the science whiz, Mitchell's the demon-ass-kicker-"

"It wouldn't work," Sam interjected, shaking her head in frustration at Spike. "I'm sure we all appreciate the suggestion, Spike, but firstly, this is a movie based on a _science-fiction_ series; we can't just change the emphasis to make it supernatural, and secondly-"

Whatever else Sam might have been about to say about Spike's suggestion was destined never to be revealed; before Daniel could continue talking, Marty chose that moment to walk back into the room, waving his phone in the air in frustration.

"I can't believe it!" he sighed, as he slumped down into the chair. "The whole cast heard Marlowe is holding out for more money, and now they're all joining in. Where do they think it comes from? How am I supposed to do a movie without any actors?"

"Carter," Mitchell said, smiling slightly as he raised one hand, "correct me if I'm wrong on this, but is it not a fact of parallel dimension physics that each of us exists somewhere in some universe in whatever way, shape, or form we can imagine?"

"Any way, shape, or form we can imagine," Carter said, nodding in confirmation. "We've seen it for ourselves," she added, glancing over at Spike. "We've actually visited alternate realities once or twice."

"There you go," the lieutenant colonel said, smiling nonchalantly as he leant back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head as he glanced over at Marty. "Use your imagination. Maybe you could… I dunno, just use puppets or something? You know, make it a Gerry Anderson-style take on the whole thing?"

"Yeah, _that'll_ work," Marty said, rolling his eyes sarcastically. "A whole movie made with puppets?"

"Hey, I'm just saying-" Mitchell began.

"Maybe we can have puppet O'Neill jump over a puppet shark on a one-third scale motorcycle," Marty continued, rolling his eyes in exasperation as he slumped back into his chair.

Blinking in confusion, Vala raised her eyebrows and glanced hopefully over at Mitchell.

"I don't get it," she said simply. Mitchell could only shrug at that.

"Look," Marty said, as he looked around at the rest of SG-1, "you don't know the business like I do. I don't have any money, so I have to give the actors something else."

"Why not just give them bigger trailers?" Spike suggested with a slightly dismissive shrug of his shoulders.

"I can't afford that either," Marty said, shaking his head in a manner that suggested to Spike he almost wasn't paying attention to his surroundings. "No, I have to give them something that costs me nothing but no actor can refuse."

"And… what's that?" Mitchell asked, waving a hand in a prompting manner.

"A good ego stroking," Marty said simply. "I have to make them think that I re-wrote the script just for them. In this draft, there has to be something that makes them want to do this movie even if it's for scale."

"Oh, and what do you call what we've been trying to do here for the last few hours; just a fancy form of breathing?" Spike retorted, waving one hand at the table.

"Oh, I appreciate it, but it's still not _quite _what I'm looking for," Marty said, shaking his head as he spoke. "No… I'm talking about a twist, something that_ nobody's_ expecting.

"You mean something like this?" a voice said from outside the door. As Spike glanced in the direction of the voice, a tall man, apparently in his mid-fifties with short grey hair, dressed in a blue dress uniform and smiling nonchalantly around the room. Spike had no idea who he was, but he was evidently well-known to everybody else in the room; Daniel, Sam and Teal'c in particular seemed happy to see him, and

"Wow," Vala said, as she jerked a thumb at the new arrival while glancing over at Marty, "I don't think anyone will see _that_ coming."

"No, there'll be spoilers," Daniel said, shaking his head.

"Are you kidding?" Sam asked, nodding with a slight smile on her face. "It'll be in the commercial."

"Uh… question?" Spike interjected, looking critically around at the others as he walked forward to stand in the centre of the table, the better to make his presence known. "Would someone mind telling those of us who just got here who this guy actually _is_?"

Sighing slightly, the new arrival and turned to look at Spike, who was currently standing in the middle of the briefing table with his arms folded, as though daring somebody to make something of his current corporeally-challenged existence as he critically studied the man standing before him.

"So, based on that, I take it you're another new guy?" he asked, looking at the platinum-haired vampire with a small smile on his face that looked like he was trying to decide whether to shake Spike's hand or punch his face. "General Jack O'Neill- used to run this place- and I just have two questions for you; what planet did you come from, and why are you standing _in _the table?"

"Uh… actually, Spike's from Earth; we were sent an amulet of some kind, and, when I opened the package, Spike… well, appeared," Daniel explained, looking apologetically at his old friend. "As for the intangibility thing… we're still working on figuring that part out; it's not something he has any control over."

"Ah," Jack said, looking back at where the platinum-haired vampire was currently looking at him as though trying to decide whether he should like him or hate him

"So," Mitchell asked, looking curiously over at Jack as Marty's cell-phone suddenly rang, prompting him to walk away to answer it with a brief apologetic wave in their direction, "what brings you this way, sir?"

"What, a guy can't just stop by from Malibu to say hi?" Jack said, looking inquiringly at the younger man in front of him.

"Malibu?" Sam said critically.

"Sure," Jack said, nodding slightly. "I was there on… business."

Spike couldn't believe this guy; his 'cover story'- if it could be called that- was _totally _unbelievable. Why he'd ever thought _anyone _would buy such a _lame _excuse Spike doubted he'd _ever _understand…

"_Exactly_, sir," Sam said; clearly she didn't buy this guy's story any more than Spike did. "You're an air force general with enormous responsibilities; you can't just 'drop in' like this."

"OK," Jack said, looking around at them in an apologetic manner before he spoke once again, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table with the rest of them. "Well, ostensibly, I just stopped by to see how you were doing with Marty, but… Well, truth be known that… uh, lately, I've been feeling a little…"

He waved a hand uncertainly as he looked around the table. "Well… how do I say it…?"

"It's OK to say that you missed us, sir," Sam said, smiling slightly at him.

"No, not that," he said dismissively. Spike briefly registered a slightly conflicted expression on Sam's face, as though she wasn't sure whether to be relieved or insulted at that, but she pushed it aside so quickly that he couldn't be sure whether or not it had been there in the first place.

"Like you have unfinished business?" Daniel asked.

"Yeah, pretty much," Jack said, nodding briefly in confirmation at his old friend.

"You need closure, and I have the perfect thing," Mitchell said, smiling slightly at the older man. "We're about to go on a mission to commemorate my two-hundredth trip through the gate."

"Really?" Jack said, looking at Mitchell with a slight smile. "Two _hundred_, you say?"

"That's two hundred times he's stepped through the gate, sir, not actual missions," Sam clarified.

"And I still don't get what the big deal is about that; I mean, it's not like anybody threw a party for me when I took out my two hundredth victim…" Spike began, only to pause as he realised the rest of the team were looking critically at him. "Hey, that was _pre_-soul, you know; I don't _do _that sort of thing any more!"

"Uh… yeah, whatever," Jack said, clearly deciding to just ignore that particular issue for a more convenient time as he turned back to look at the rest of his old team. "Getting back to the issue of a trip through the 'gate… to be honest, I wouldn't mind one last jaunt through the old orifice."

As he pointed at the Stargate, the rest of the group- Spike included- frowned critically at him.

"What?" Jack said, shrugging slightly. "We call it that sometimes, don't we? Orifice?"

A look exchanged between Sam and Daniel was all Spike needed to confirm what he already suspected; this guy either had one strange sense of humour, or he was only slightly less warped than Dru had been.

_Still_, Spike mused to himself, as Marty once again angrily terminated another phone call with the movie's producers, _at least he's not downright homicidal_.

"Stupid focus groups!" he groaned, as he slammed one hand against the wall. "They _hate_ the ending; I have to think of something _new_!"

"They could go fishing," Jack said, looking over at Marty with an eager grin.

"Fishing?" Marty repeated, looking at the original commander of SG-1 as though he'd just grown another head.

"Yeah, it would be the perfect ending," Jack said, smiling encouragingly at Marty. "I mean, after that, anything else would seem... pointless. Think of it; they're sitting back, hanging out together as friends, casting a line into an… OK, an empty lake, probably, but still…"

He shrugged. "I think it works."

"Yeah, but where's the last-minute twist to leave the audience interested?" Marty retorted. "I mean, no _fish_? I need something with more impact, something more…moving."

"Hey," Vala put in, a broad grin on her face as she smacked Daniel briefly on the arm, "everyone loves a wedding; why not just do that?"

"A wedding?" Daniel repeated, looking incredulously over at Vala.

"Yeah; it's _perfect_!" Vala continued, smiling casually over at the archaeologist. "We have an Asgard overseeing the ceremonies, the bride teleports in after a little bit of harmless-yet-amusing innuendo between the groom and best man, then, finally, the wedding of those two guys in the series who had all that sexual tension building up between them… what were their names again?"

"Colonel Danning and Major Stacy Monroe," Daniel stated bluntly, glaring briefly at Vala in a manner that made it clear he didn't want to take this particular line of discussion any further.

Spike blinked in surprise.

Was it his imagination, or did his new friend sound almost… disappointed by that fact? He didn't remember much of what few episodes of _Wormhole X-Treme_ he'd seen- as he'd said, he thought the series sucked- but, looking at the group around him now, he was guessing that Major Monroe was based on Carter and Danning had already been confirmed as being based on this 'Jack' sucker.

"Yeah, right," Marty snorted, breaking into Spike's train of thought. "I'd do that… if I want to torture the audience on _purpose_."

"Gotta agree with you; I don't think it'd work out either," Spike commented, smirking slightly from the back of the room.

"Excuse me?" Jack said, turning to look critically at the vampire 'ghost' standing behind him. "Who died and made you a movie critic?"

"Given that I was there at the world premiere of _every _'Dracula' movie ever made in the last century- had to eat a few people to get the tickets, but I was always there; like seeing how the prat's portrayed by the general public these days- I think I know what people like over the years," Spike retorted. "You end with something permanent like a wedding when the characters haven't even admitted how they felt about each other for real before- and I saw _X-Treme _once or twice; none of the characters said _anything _about loving each other- and you just feel like they stuck that in there for the sheer heck of it. You've got to have had at least a few more _explicit _hints in the series before something like that, otherwise it just seems like you stuck it in for the heck of it."

Before Jack could reply to that- not that he or any of the other members of SG-1 were entirely sure how to respond in the first place-, the smirk had faded from Spike's face and he was glaring at Jack, folding his arms as he studied the man before him. "By the way, I resent the 'died' comment; I've already pretty much died _twice_, you know, and I'd appreciate you _not _making light of it."

Jack had only just opened his mouth to ask what Spike meant by that when Landry walked up the stairs from the 'gate control room, a slight smile on his face as he glanced over at the facility's top team.

"The gate's back up and running," he said, smiling briefly at them before he turned to nod at Jack. "General," he added, nodding with respect at his superior officer.

"General," Jack replied nodding in confirmation.

"With permission...?" Mitchell inquired, jerking his thumb towards the room door. Landry nodded in confirmation, and the entire SG-1 team instantly stood up and headed for the room's entrance, leaving Marty and Spike standing in the briefing room as Landry and Jack followed their colleagues.

"Oh, by the way, Spike," Landry said, pausing mid-way through the door as he turned to look back at the SGC's newest arrival, "I've contacted the IOA; they'll be sending an agent down to evaluate whether or not you should be allowed to serve on an SG team while we're away."

Spike opened his mouth to protest, but Landry raised a hand to stop him. "It's SGC policy; if you're going to stick around here, you have to do it, or we'll have to see whether calling in an exorcist would actually do anything to you."

For a moment, Spike and Landry simply stood there, glaring at each other, before Spike sighed and nodded.

"What the hell…" the vampire once known as William the Bloody sighed, as he looked at Landry. "If I've got to sit with a shrink, I'll sit with a shrink."

"Good," Landry said, nodding back at Spike. "If I'm not back by the time he arrives, I'll have Colonel Feretti call you when the man gets here; you'll find him in my office."

With that, Landry turned back to the door before him, and began to once again walk out of the room.

"But… but I still don't have my ending!" Marty protested weakly as the general left the room, leaving him alone with the vampire ghost.

Spike shrugged.

"Like to help you, but I'm afraid I can't," he said simply, looking with a teasingly apologetic grin at Marty. "You'll just have to improvise, I guess."

"Oh, _great_…" Marty groaned, as he slumped back into his chair. "I come _all _this way, try _everything _I can think of to get them interested, go over every resource available, and what do I have to show for it in the end? _Nothing_!"

"Hey, that's your problem; I've got enough issues of my _own_ right now, buddy," Spike pointed out, as he waved his hand through the wall. "In case you weren't paying attention, I'm not _meant _to be like this; I'm stuck in a state that makes me practically a sodding _ghost_, and I'm going to have to actually take a bloody Q&A session before they even let me go through the bloody gate. You think _you've _got-?"

Before Spike could finish his sentence, Marty's phone rang once again.

"For cryin' out loud; how the hell do you even get _reception _down here?" Spike protested, staring incredulously at the phone in the other man's hand.

"With difficulty," Marty added, smiling slightly sheepishly at the other man before he put the phone to his ear. "Yes, what-?"

In all his years, Spike had never seen a man's expression shift so rapidly; one minute, Marty was looking as frustrated as Spike had ever seen somebody look when they weren't fighting for their lives, and the next he had a grin on his face that was so broad it looked like his head would fall in half.

"Really?" he said, grinning enthusiastically as he listened to the voice on the other end of the line. "That's… that's _great_! Really, that's _fantastic_! Thanks; you have _no _idea how much this means to me!"

"Good news, I take it?" Spike asked, raising an eyebrow as he studied the man before him. Marty didn't appear to register what he'd said, however; he just kept on talking into the phone, walking around the room as Spike stared in surprise at the guy.

"OK, yeah, that works; we just pick up where we left off based on the DVD episodes," Marty continued, nodding slightly as he spoke into the phone. "Get the same actors back, come up with something to account for the age difference between this episode and the last one, work on a decent plot…"

"Hey, Marty!" Jack's voice suddenly called up from a lower level; glancing out of the window, Spike noted that the newly-arrived general was standing in front of the Stargate- which now resembled a vivid blue puddle standing at a ninety-degree angle; Spike must have missed it activating due to Marty- with Daniel, Sam and Teal'c on either side of him, with Mitchell, Vala, Landry and some bald guy in glasses that Spike didn't recognise just behind them.

"Why don't you come with us?" Jack continued, indicating the Stargate before them. "Maybe find a little inspiration for the 'end' of your little 'movie'," he added, using quote-marks with his fingers.

"Um… I can't," Marty said, shaking his head. "I just heard from the studio; the movie's been cancelled."

"Oh, _there's_ some heartbreaking news," Jack said, shaking his head pityingly; somehow, Spike doubted anyone there was that broken up by the news.

"Oh, that's too bad," Vala added, her own voice also sounding- to Spike- more than slightly insincere.

"Not for me," Marty smiled eagerly. "They decided to renew the series instead!"

"Ah," Jack said simply, as he exchanged glances with the rest of the team before he nodded. "OK, enough of that; let's move out."

As they walked up the ramp to the Stargate, the four people who Spike had gathered formed the original members of SG-1 took the lead, with Vala, Mitchell, Landry and the unnamed bald guy just behind them. No sooner had they walked through the 'puddle' that apparently served as the way this thing sent you to other places- leaving a brief 'ripple' in the process, Spike noted- than the Stargate powered down, leaving only the ring once again.

_Right then_, Spike mused to himself, as he turned around to study the room around him, Marty already gathering up his scripts and heading for the door with an eager grin on his face. _Guess all I can do now is wait_.


	9. The Psychiatric Evaluation of Spike

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

After a couple of hours of simply hanging around the SGC base, making various futile attempts to pick up objects as he explored the various offices, Spike was finally directed to a deserted office, where he found himself facing a man in a business suit

"Ah, you would be this 'Spike' I've heard so much about?" the man said, standing up and briefly moving as though he was going to shake the vampire's hand before he stopped himself, clearly realising the stupidity of what he was doing, offering to shake the hand of a man who technically didn't have a body any more. "I'm Doctor Hutchinson; I'll be carrying out your evaluation."

"Right," Spike said, nodding briefly as he stared at the man in question. "So… what do you want to ask me?"

"First things first; how do you feel?" Hutchinson asked, looking inquiringly at the man before him, only to be met with a cold stare.

"I'm in a state that's as close to being a sodding ghost as makes no odds, I can't figure out how to touch anything and I've ended up stuck in the middle of an intergalactic war after taking out the First bloody Evil itself in what I _thought _would be my noble death; how the sodding hell do you _think _I feel?" Spike retorted coldly; if this man was going to evaluate him, he'd get everything he asked for and more as far as Spike was concerned.

"So, that would be frustrated, I take it?" Hutchinson replied, smiling slightly at Spike in a reassuring manner as he reached into a briefcase and took out several seemingly blank pieces of paper. "Right then, that seems straightforward enough… now then, since filling in the written evaluation isn't really practical, given what I've heard about your current condition, we decided we'd just go straight to the next part of the evaluation, so I'd appreciate it if you looked at these ink blots for me."

"Ink blots?" Spike sighed, as he studied the piece of paper before him, raising his eyebrows critically. "I always _hated _those things…"

"Well then, that should give you all the more incentive for you to get this over and done with," Hutchinson smiled at Spike as he presented the first ink blot. "Now then, what do you see?"

"The Hellmouth," Spike said bluntly.

"The what?" Hutchinson asked in confusion.

"Portal to Hell that was under the place I lived for the last four years," Spike explained casually, nearly leaning back against the wall before he stopped himself. "I shut it shortly before I bit the bullet, but it always played a big role in my life before the whole thing went… thud, I suppose, is the best term; definitely wasn't boom."

"I… see," Hutchinson said, shaking his head slightly before he turned his attention back to the ink blots before him, putting that one to the side and pulling out another one. "This?"

"Big sword; looks like someone's raising it."

"This?"

"It's either a crossbow or a shotgun; side view makes it hard to be sure."

"This?"

"A football?" The vampire raised his eyebrows in surprise as he looked at the blot in front of him before turning to stare at Hutchinson. "Bit of a drastic shift, wouldn't you say?"

"Spike…" Hutchinson sighed, as he stared critically at the vampire. "The whole _point _of these things is that you see what you _want_, not a picture that's already there; I thought you knew that."

"Yeah, I knew it; doesn't mean I don't still think it's bloody stupid," Spike groaned, as he slumped back against the chair- once again rolling his eyes at the stupidity of the fact that he could sit in a chair but couldn't pick up even a cup- before turning back to look critically at Hutchinson. "Well, as long as I'm here, might as well see it though; give me the next one."

"Uh… right," Hutchinson said, as he pulled out his next card and held it up.

"Steam engine," Spike stated briefly, rolling his eyes once more as he wished wholeheartedly he could slump against the wall. He knew that sluming down in the chair was an option, but if this guy wanted to get inside Spike's head, Spike'd give him everything he might need to know about the former William the Bloody, and the would-be artist once known as William the Bloody did _not _sit down for some git in a suit unless he had to.

The whole 'fighting aliens on other planets' thing sounded interesting, of course- if nothing else, it would _definitely _get him out of Angel's shadow; how many times had _that _git visited other worlds in his lifetime?- but if it meant Spike had to become something he wasn't… forget it. The chip may have forced him to change when it was first stuck in his brain, but at least then he'd _had _to change if he was going to survive; right now, he had no real reason to act as anything other than what he was, so he was just going to give these guys what they wanted- pure Spike- and leave everything else up to whoever it was up to.

* * *

An hour or so later, having studied more black splodges than he cared to remember- how could you get _that _kind of picture out of something that looked like a fountain pen had broken while somebody was writing?- Spike was slumped down in the chair in Daniel's office, listlessly staring at the ceiling as he waited for the next 'round' in his evaluation and tried to keep himself occupied. 

Unfortunately, that wouldn't have been easy even if he'd been corporeal; the only books in Daniel's office seemed to be nothing more than books on ancient history and archaeology, something that Spike had never really managed to get interested in, and he wouldn't have wanted to risk the guy coming in to let him know the next part of the test was ready only to find him asleep in a chair.

_Whereas _now Spike mused to himself, as he stared up at the ceiling, kicking his leg through Daniel's table as he nearly tried to swing the chair around, _all I have to worry about is falling asleep and falling through the floor… assuming I even _need _sleep in this kind of state_.

He wasn't sure what was worse, really; not being able to read books to kill time, or being able to read books when the only available options were ones that bored him stupid.

Still, on the bright side, he wouldn't have to be bored for long; the next step of his 'evaluation' would be beginning in just a few minutes, so at least he'd have something else to keep himself occuped

"Hello?" a voice said, as somebody opened the door behind him, breaking into Spike's train of thought. "May I have a moment of your time?"

Turning around, Spike rolled his eyes slightly as he saw another berk in a business suit standing in front of him, this one bald and wearing glasses that, in Spike's opinion, were just a bit too large; he looked like he was trying to be more intellectual than he was. Rolling his eyes, Spike stood up, his hands in his pockets as he looked at the man before him.

"Look, I've got an appointment soon," he began, looking critically at the man before him. "So unless you're here to tell me it's been rescheduled-"

"Oh, I know about the appointment; it's why I'm here," the man explained, as he walked into the office and shut the door. "I'll be quick, I assure you. My name is Richard Woolsey. I work for the International Oversight Advisory, a civilian-run organization made up of representatives from the various nations involved in the Stargate program."

"What, you… make sure they don't do anything stupid with the alien tech they pick up out there, stuff like that?" Spike asked, raising an eyebrow. This business was _definitely _more complicated than fighting vampires; at least then all he'd needed to worry about, even when he was evil, was staking the bastards and leaving anything that wasn't worth something financially to crumble into dust with them.

"Essentially, yes," Woolsey replied, as he casually leant against the wall to talk to Spike. "Anyway, the reason I'm here is that we have a little… proposition for you. To put it bluntly, we can see to it that you pass your current psychiatric evaluation with flying colors, effectively putting any doubts Stargate Command may have about you to rest-"

"Really?" Spike replied, his voice neutral as he looked back at Woolsey. "And in exchange for this, I'd need to… what? Kill somebody here you don't like?"

"Oh, nothing so drastic, I assure you; we'd just appreciate a little… insight into the weekly goings on here at Stargate Command," Woolsey explained, smiling slightly at the vampire as he spoke. "You see, despite the fact that all signatories to the Gate Alliance Treaty- the group of countries who are permitted to know about the Stargate and the discoveries we make in the process- are de facto partners in the Stargate program, my employers are often left… out of the loop when it comes to the more sensitive developments here on the base. We'd just like you to keep us… updated, is all."

"In other words," Spike stated, as he looked critically at Woolsey, "once I've worked out how to touch stuff and thus use phones and computers properly, you'd like to be spy on these suckers."

Woolsey chuckled slightly as he stood up and looked at the man before him,

"I've read your file from the DRI archives as soon as General Landry told us who you were, Mr. Spike," he said casually. "I'm a quick study, and what information we do receive always comes promptly; we just feel that we could get a bit… _more _out of the Stargate Command staff with an inside man. I don't think what we're asking is that unusual, for someone with such a colorful history-"

"Check the file again, you stupid sod; I'm not interested," Spike retorted as he folded his arms as he glared at Woolsey.

Woolsey blinked in surprise; clearly, he hadn't been expecting that.

"Excuse me?" he said simply.

"Read my sodding lips, you paper-pushing moron; I'm. Not. Interested," Spike stated grimly, walking up towards Woolsey until he was practically directly in the bald man's face. "I've done some shit in my time, but I do _not _hand people who trust me over to people I don't know or who I _know _aren't up to anything good… any more."

"Because you got a soul?" Woolsey asked, his tone of voice clearly demonstrating his lack of belief in anything spiritual like a soul or an afterlife. Spike briefly wondered how this git 'rationalised' his current status if he didn't seem to believe in the supernatural as an explanation, but decided it wasn't worth asking about; he didn't particularly care anyway.

"Not _just _because I got a soul; because I got somebody who believed in me when the chips were down and everybody else I knew wanted me dead," the vampire once known as William the Bloody said, as he stepped back slightly to make sure Woolsey understood the full scale of what he was saying. "After knowing what it's like to have someone actually _trust_ me, I'm not going to just start stabbing these guys in the back- in _any _sense- when they've done nothing but try and help figure out what the bloody _hell _happened to me just because you're offering me a nice package deal."

With that said, Spike turned around and walked through the wall of the office, pausing only briefly to stick his arm and head back through the wall, subsequently giving Woolsey the finger and telling him to perform an anatomically impossible action before he pulled his head back through the wall once more.

_Git_, Spike mused to himself as he paced along the corridor towards the room where the second half of his evaluation would be held. _Why is it _every _place dedicated to saving the world is always connected to at least one total, utter, complete _git_? The Slayer has the sodding Watchers' Council and that 'Travers' gimp, and this place has that guy and this stupid 'International Oversight _Assholes_'_.

Honestly, like he hadn't had to deal with enough crap back in Sunnydale what with the One-Eyed Carpenter wanting him staked for what he'd done in the pre-soul days; now he had some prick who'd read about him in a file wanting him to spy on the people who were trying to _help _him?

OK, so they hadn't actually managing to do anything about his current 'condition' right now; that didn't mean they weren't at least _trying _to find out what was going on with this whole intangibility mess rather than just leaving him high and dry.

The important thing here was that, even when he was soulless, Spike wouldn't have done something like that to people who'd helped him (Those times the Scourge had pretended to have been ambushed to get into a house of some kind or another while _claiming _to need somewhere to stay didn't count as being helped; they'd never been in any danger in the first place). Admittedly, back in his soulless, pre-chipped days, if people helped him his only thanks was to _not _brutally murder them when he was about to go, but given how he'd been back then, that was still pretty polite by his usual standards.

_You've got to miss the simple days sometimes_, Spike mused to himself as he arrived at the door to the room where the next part of his evaluation would take place. _Sometimes, it just utterly _sucks _to be the 'good guy'; makes everything a hell of a lot more complicated_.

He just hoped this next little experience of the SGC figuring out what made him tick was a bit easier to figure out the purpose of than the last one. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't _get _what showing him a bunch of ink blots and asking him what he thought they looked like could tell anybody about his mental state.

As he entered the room- once again walking through the door rather than trying to attract the attention of somebody else to open it for him-, Spike's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the strange sight before him. It seemed to be a shiny silver console, its sleek contours reminding him slightly of a spaceship he'd seen in some science fiction shows he'd watched when he was bored, and a bright blue, seemingly touch-sensitive console on the left side. A small curved metal rod stretched up from the top of the machine, positioned further to the left than to the right, with a glowing red 'eye' at the top of it, positioned in front of a chair in the middle of the room.

"What the _hell_?" Spike said, as he stared incredulously at the machine before him before turning to look at Hutchinson. "What the sodding hell is _this _thing?"

"It's a zatarc detector- essentially, a highly advanced lie detector developed by an alien race to determine whether any of their people had been brainwashed by their enemies," Hutchinson explained as he indicated that Spike should sit in the seat. "Your current condition makes conventional lie detectors impossible- indeed, from what I gather about your… unusual history… you'd be unable to use them even if you _did _have a body, what with you being technically dead and all-, so we decided to use this. Based on Colonel Carter's tests, you should still be capable of using this machine regardless of your physical status at present; it works based on reading your brainwaves rather than any other physical signs, and I gather that you're still capable of sitting down, so aligning your head with it shouldn't be a problem. All you need to do is keep your head still and your eyes open; do that, and we should have this part of the evaluation over in a few minutes."

"That simple, eh?" Spike sighed, as he walked back towards the chair and slumped down into it, staring straight ahead of himself at the device in front of him. "So, what else do I have to do here?"

"Just look into the eye and answer all my questions truthfully," Hutchinson replied, as he sat behind the machine. "It's programmed to respond to any difference between your conscious and subconscious memories, as well as any difference between what you say and what you think; even if your _conscious _memories have been altered, this thing will pick up on that and let us know of any discrepancies-"

"As well as letting you know when I'm actuallylying on purpose rather than being tricked by something?" Spike asked, rolling his eyes once more before he fixed his gaze on the device in front of him. "OK then; let's do this."

As Hutchinson walked over to the device in front of him and began to prepare the machine for his 'examination'- some parts could clearly only be worked out when he was actually _here_- Spike allowed his mind to wander briefly as he reflected on the differences between his time as a would be 'hero' here so far and the time he'd spent with the Sunnydale 'team of heroes'.

As far as Spike could gather, at some point or another over the last century or so, the whole 'saving the world thing' had clearly become increasingly both more difficult and more important if this kind of thing was necessary. Back when he'd first become a vampire he would have been lucky to go up against anything more seriously intimidating than a Slayer who'd lasted for a year or so; most of the non-superpowered vampire hunters were little more than amateurs with a vendetta against the bloodsuckers, and even those lucky enough to survive longer than a few weeks were rarely much of a challenge.

Back in those days, you could try to be a 'hero' with no more backing needed than your own nerve; if you started hunting vampires and that, either nobody noticed or they thought you were a bit of a whackjob.

These days, either- when facing vampires and demons, something people liked to think didn't exist- you did it because you felt obligated to help the world and got nothing back for your efforts, or- as in this instance, when you ended up tackling actual _aliens_, which people were more prepared to officially accept the existence of- you got paid for it but had to sit through all _kinds _of crap tests beforehand…

Spike honestly wasn't sure which kind of hero he preferred to be. On the one hand, kicking demon arse was what he'd done for the last few centuries, but on the other hand, this way he _did _get a bit more recognition than he'd ever got fighting vampires…

No, he took that back; in his current condition, he preferred the first option. At least then he'd _chosen _to do it while knowing that the 'pay' would be non-existence; in this new role, he had the option of being paid, but he wouldn't actually be able to _get _any money. After all, how could he get money out when it would just fall through his pockets any time he tried to put anything that wasn't his hands inside them?

"Right then; let's start with the obvious questions first," Hutchinson said as he looked at Spike. "I'm not entirely clear how this works, so I'll just need to establish a baseline first; your name?"

"Spike," Spike replied bluntly.

"No, your _real _name-" Hutchinson began.

"I've gone by that name for the last hundred or so years; I _think _it counts as my 'real' one by now," the vampire interjected, wishing he could tap his fingers on the seat to demonstrate his impatience; he may have decided to be honest, but he was _not _about to admit to having once been known as 'William' of all things. Unfortunately, whatever quirk of his condition allowed him to sit down didn't extend to include that particular means of stress relief, so he was forced to fume without tapping something.

"_Fine_," Hutchinson sighed, as he glanced briefly at his notes before looking back at Spike. "Since I'm not sure whether this machine would count that as a lie or not, I'll need to try something else to establish the baseline; you've spent the last few days inside the base, correct?"

"Too right you haven't let me out; I don't think anyone's even told me what sodding _state _I'm in any more," Spike groaned, one arm briefly flapping through the arm rest of the chair he was in before he pulled it back towards him and continued to stare ahead in frustration.

"Yes… well… moving on from that," Hutchinson said, waving his hand awkwardly before he spoke once again. "You've been walking through walls and unable to actually touch anything since you materialised in Doctor Jackson's office from out of an… amulet of some kind, correct?"

"Can't so much as lift up a sodding penny any more," Spike groaned, shaking his head critically. "You think I've been lying about _that_?"

"No; just needed to establish the baseline for differentiating between when you're lying and when you're telling the truth," Hutchinson said, smiling slightly at the vampire in a manner that suggested he wasn't sure how to react to the vampire's comments before he voiced his next question. "Right then, let's get started; how long, according to you, have you been fighting these… 'demons'- or whatever they are- down in Sunnydale?"

"About three or four years," Spike said nonchalantly. "Before that I was still evil; any demons I'd have tackled then would've just been tackled because I didn't like them."

"Uh… O-kaaaay…" Hutchinson said, nodding uncertainly at the vampire in front of him before he turned his attention back to the rest of the questions he could ask.

He'd hoped that his earlier assessment had been incorrect, but as it turned out, he'd been right on the money from the beginning; this 'Spike' person was proving to be almost as hard to interview as Vala Mal Doran had been…

* * *

AN: Should anybody feel that the zatarc detector shouldn't have worked on Spike, I'll just explain my reasoning. In "Just Rewards" it was established that Spike was giving off readings of brain activity in his intangible state, thus suggesting to me that the machine would work on him as he is giving off an energy it can 'read'. As for the vampire immunity to telepathy, my explanation is that the immunity only extends to when their thoughts are actually being read by somebody who _isn't _'directly' accessing their brain; this machine is directly analysing Spike's memories inside his head, rather than a telepath simply picking them up from a distance, and it isn't reading his thoughts anyway.

* * *

As he walked out of the room about an hour later, Spike had rapidly come to the conclusion that his earlier hopes had all been for nothing; this part of the evaluation _hadn't _included anything that he felt particularly related to why he'd make a good member of one of the Stargate teams. He'd ended up having to repeat some of his answers several times- apparently because the guy couldn't believe some of the stuff he was saying had actually _happened_; what was so unbelievable about a demonic loan shark who looked like a shark?-, had been asked several questions about what he'd been like in his pre-soul and post-soul days, and all kinds of crap like that; he couldn't even _remember _some of the answers he'd given any more. 

"_Damnit_!" he yelled, as he walked through the door to Daniel's office- at least he no longer had to worry about door handles, although the fact was of little comfort to him in his current state-, once again wishing he could just punch something and vent at least some of his frustration at his current condition.

"It didn't go well, I take it?" a voice said from behind him.

"God, are you _still _here?" Spike groaned, turning around to glare in frustration at where Woolsey was nonchalantly standing against the wall, apparently reading one of Daniel's books. Spike strongly suspected he was only holding the book as a pretext for his presence, and he'd really just been waiting for the vampiric 'ghost' to get back from his evaluation.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Woolsey replied, as he closed the book and put it back on its shelf. "I just wanted to check if you hadn't reconsidered our offer after that-"

"What; you think just because I don't fit into your little space-wandering club I'm going to moan and complain about it?" Spike retorted, walking up to stare Woolsey in the face; he may not be able to hit this berk, but by _God _he was going to loom at the guy. "If you don't sodding want me because I'm going to screw up, _fine_; you think I _want _to put this sodding planet in danger?"

"I assumed that, as a vampire-" Woolsey began.

"I'd _want _the world to get blown up?" Spike interjected, rolling his eyes in frustration. "Read my bloody file _again_, idiot; if Captain Cardboard ever actually listened to _anything _Buffy told him about me, it'll mention that I actually _like _the world as it is even before I got my soul back. If me going out there increases the likelihood of it getting blown to smithereens, I'm not going, got me?"

With that said, he walked through Woolsey, strode through the door behind the man, and turned to walk along the corridor, no fixed destination in mind as he studied his surroundings.

He had no idea where to go now, no idea what he could do to keep himself occupied when he got there, and nothing to brighten up his future prospects but the oh-so-slim hope that he'd end up with his body once again at some point or another.

It was official; life _sucked_.

"_Great_…" he moaned to himself, as he turned around to walk into another office- he vaguely registered Samantha Carter's name on the door, but he didn't care about that beyond the fact that it meant the place would be empty for a while-, slumped down in the chair behind the desk in frustration, and glared in frustration at the wall in front of him.

No body, no opportunity to do anything useful here, nothing to keep himself occupied, not even a decent type of ghost to help him figure out how to touch stuff…

What the hell was he going to _do _with his new lease on unlife; haunt this stupid place until somebody figured out a way to send him on to whatever waited for him afterwards?

He knew he'd done some crap in his time, but did he really deserve _this_? Stuck in some underground dump where he wasn't even able to find a decent TV, never _mind _so much as a nice view to keep himself occupied, forced to put up with that Woolsey git sitting around, a smug little grin on his face as he constantly reminded Spike that he was only in this mess because of his 'conscience'…

Spike couldn't live like this for very long.

If there was any way around it, he'd find out about it _now_.

* * *

As Colonel Feretti- currently in command of the SGC given the continued absence of Landry and the rest of SG-1 on their twenty-four-hour recon mission- entered the makeshift firing range located on level seventeen, he could only blink in surprise at the sight before him; he'd heard the reports, but a part of him had somehow assumed that the soldiers had slightly exaggerated to convince him to come down earlier. Spike's spectral form- although given that he was technically dead already Feretti had his doubts that he would have been in much danger even if he was solid- was strolling up and down the firing ranger, between the targets and where the soldiers would have been if he hadn't driven them out due to him constantly yelling at them. 

"Come _on_, can't one of you bastards at least _try _and blow the sodding thing up?" he yelled as he paced around the room; either he didn't register that nobody was there any more or he he'd just started yelling as soon as he'd heard the door open. "It's only up in the sodding labs, for crying out loud; stuff must blow up there all the _time_! I'm not asking _much_ from you sods, I just want-"

"Spike," Feretti stated, looking inquiringly at the vampire. "What are you doing; I've heard reports that you've been yelling at the staff for the last twenty minutes or so?"

"I've been _trying _to convince one of these sods to see how that sodding amulet reacts to being shot at; what do you _think _I've been doing?" Spike yelled in frustration as he walked up to look at Feretti, once again standing inside the partition between where the soldiers would stand and the targets would be located. "Look, Colonel Whoever-you-are, I'm not going to sodding hang around here until you sods figure out a way to make me solid again, OK? I'm just going to get somebody to see what'll shatter that amulet, and then I'll be gone for good; don't even _think _about trying to stop me!"

"Wouldn't dream of it," Feretti said, smiling slightly at Spike. "I just would have thought you'd have wanted to stay around after you'd passed the evaluation."

Spike blinked.

"I… I _passed_?" he said incredulously. "But… but…"

"You thought it went worse than it did?" Feretti asked, the smile still on his face as he looked at the vampire. "Don't worry about it; Vala had pretty much the same reaction to the whole situation."

"Although," a familiar voice said from off to the side, "you _did _come up with a conclusive response to my 'offer' more rapidly than she did; Miss Doran had to actually think about it before she made a decision either way."

Spike's eyes widened in surprise.

God, just when he thought he'd got a _handle _on this whole situation…

"_You_?" he yelled, spinning around to glare at Woolsey. "You're telling me you were part of a _scam_?"

"Not a 'scam', per se; just a little test to make sure that we could trust you," Feretti explained, smiling reassuringly at the vampire. "You didn't take the easy way to get what you were after when you had every reason to believe you were failing the tests, and your commitment to Earth is evident by your comments about how you wouldn't want to join a team if it put us at risk. As well as that, your evaluation- when combined with the files Agent Finn sent us regarding what he knew of your history over the last few years; he'd told us that everything you were before that isn't relevant- shows a strong person, dedicated to fighting for what he believes in, whose resolve to protect Earth- and, by extension, his allies- from being destroyed certainly can't be questioned."

"Oh," Spike said, suddenly feeling rather embarrassed as he looked between Woolsey and Feretti, remembering all the times he'd insulted the prick.

Given that he _couldn't _just hand the bastard over to the people in charge on the grounds that he'd been trying to bribe a member of staff, Spike somehow doubted he'd won himself any brownie points in dealing with that guy for the rest of his time here…

_Ah well_, he mused to himself, allowing himself a slight smile as he looked at the man in front of him, _there's always the possibility of a good old haunting to get back at the sod later on_.

"Right then," he said, clasping his hands together as he looked inquiringly at the two men in front of him, "with all that crap sorted out, any chance I can get an actual room now instead of just waiting around in somebody else's office like some prat?"

* * *

The next day, having returned from their survey mission to a relatively quiet SGC- they'd stayed a few hours longer on the planet than they'd originally planned to enjoy some time off from saving the universe, as well as giving Jack a chance to catch up with his old teamamtes-, SG-1 walked into the briefing room shortly after arriving at the base, to find Spike casually sitting in one of the chairs, his hands held up in front of him as he looked piercingly at Woolsey, who was currently sitting opposite him. 

"Oh, good; you're here," Vala said, smiling casually over at Spike, as soon as she saw him before indicating Woolsey. "So, given that you and my old 'friend' here aren't arguing your heads off about you being at this briefing, shall I take it that you've been given probationary status with the team?"

"We've managed to reach an… accord, yes," Woolsey said, nodding briefly as he looked over at Spike, clearly making every effort not to look at Vala. "Mr. Spike here will be allowed to go on various missions with you over the next few weeks, during which we shall determine whether or not he serves as an asset or a hindrance to SG-1's performance as a unit. Should he prove to be a disruptive element of any sort, he will be taken off the team and confined to Stargate Command until a means of restoring him to his corporeal form have been discovered, allowing him to sign the Official Secrets Act and subsequently make his own way away from here."

"Really?" Spike said, looking critically at the political weasel before him as he folded his arms. "No offence, but what the sodding hell makes you think I'd _ever_-"

"_Spike_," Mitchell interjected, glaring over at the vampire 'ghost' as he spoke, his eyes narrowed as he looked at the man before him. "Two things; Shut. Up. You're on a team here, you'll play by the rules or you don't get through the 'gate at all no matter how good you did in the evaluation. _Comprende_?"

For a moment, the two men stared at each other, their eyes locked directly on the other man's, before Spike finally rolled his eyes.

"_Fine_," he groaned, as he turned around and slumped down once again in a nearby chair. "I'll stick around here if things don't work out on other planets; you happy?"

"That's fine," Landry said, nodding briefly at Spike before he turned to look at the rest of SG-1. "In any case, your next mission is a fairly straightforward one; you're going to join the _Odyssey _and investigate reports that an Ori spacecraft recently landed on a world near the area of space they're currently patrolling-"

"Back up a minute; what the hell's the _Odyssey_?" Spike said, looking critically at Sam and Daniel. "I'm not going _anywhere _until I know what to expect."

"Oh, it's one of the ships in Earth's space fleet," Sam replied, smiling slightly at Spike. "It's a bit primitive compared to some of the ships out there, but we've got allies among some of the more advanced races who've given us some extra technology after we've helped them out of a few tight spots."

Spike could only blink at that.

"You have sodding _spaceships_?" he yelled, after a moment's pause as SG-1 enjoyed the dumbstruck reaction on his face; it was somehow refreshing to be talking to somebody who had no real idea what to expect from them.

"Well, as I said, they're a bit primitive compared to some of the ships out there, but we generally manage to hold our own in them whenever we need to take them anywhere," Sam replied, shrugging slightly at the vampire. "The Stargates are still faster to get from place to place, but the occasional use of a ship can be helpful if we want to keep our presence secret; they always make a noise when we dial a wormhole to that address."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding in understanding before he stood up, clasping his hands together as he smile at his new 'team'. "When do we start?"

"As soon as possible," Landry replied, looking around at the now six-man team as he spoke. "Mr Spike will receive a quick crash course in team protocol from yourselves and Mr Woolsey here, and then-"

"Uh, there's just one thing I'd like straightened out first," Daniel put, raising one hand as he looked at Landry anxiously. "General, we've established that Spike is tied to the amulet; he can't go much more than a short distance from it before being pulled back to wherever it's currently located. I was just wondering, well…"

"Who's going to be looking after the amulet, right?" Landry said, smiling slightly as he pulled the gem in question out of his pocket and tossed it over to the archaeologist. "That would be you, Doctor Jackson; Finn sent it to you, so, as far as I'm concerned, that makes it yours."

"On the topic of the amulet, isn't there a possibility it might interact badly with the Stargate?" Sam added, looking anxiously over at Mitchell. "Did Captain Finn mention anything about how it worked when you were talking to him?"

"Well, he thought it was safe, if that's what you mean," Mitchell replied, shrugging slightly. "Something about how the entity Spike was fighting tried to tap into the power source below him- this 'Hellmouth' thing he's mentioned-, and the conflict of energy between the two caused the explosion. Unless we've got something trying to attack the SGC without us knowing it, I think it'd be safe to take the thing through the 'gate without any problems."

"Good," Landry said, nodding at Mitchell before he turned to look at the rest of SG-1. "Right then; let's get this down to business."


	10. Spike's First Mission

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Just to clarify, if I don't show anything, it happened the same way it happened in the original episode; the only exception is Daniel and Vala's conversation about Sha're, which will never take place here because… well, just wait and see

The Ghost in the Team

A couple of days later, Spike stood on the bridge of the _Odyssey_, his hands plunged into his pockets as he stared somewhat sulkily at the planet spread out on the viewscreen before him.

It wasn't that he was _bored _or anything- on the contrary, he'd totally enjoyed the chance to spend a bit of time on a real-life _spaceship_; every moment he could be sure he wouldn't get yelled at for being a pain (No sense ticking off these people, after all) he'd asked somebody for information about how something worked or where this place had been-, but to come all that way from Earth, only to be told he couldn't go down to the planet until they'd established whether there's be somewhere for him to 'hide' so he wouldn't give them away…

It kind of sucked, to put it bluntly.

Just because he understood _why _he'd need to hide when he got down there- his clothing would stick out like a sore thumb the second he stepped onto the planet's surface, and he couldn't wear a robe without the damn thing falling through him in his current state- didn't mean he couldn't be bored silly about it. Having come all that way for _nothing_…

OK, so he had been able to check out the ship a bit and been allowed to go up onto the bridge while he waited for the rest of his new 'team' to be finished; it wasn't _quite _what he'd been hoping for when he'd agreed to this kind of thing. He'd been hoping to get a chance to kick some alien arse, and so far he wasn't even going where 'no vamp had gone before', as the one-eyed Nick Fury wannabe might have put it.

"Sir?" a lieutenant suddenly said from his position down in the front of the ship, looking anxiously over at the commander of the ship- some guy called Emerson, if Spike remembered correctly. "I'm picking up an energy reading coming from the surface of the planet."

"What is it?" Emerson asked, looking pointedly past Spike at the lieutenant; the crew had mostly tolerated Spike's presence after SG-1 had vouched for him, but otherwise they'd pretty much ignored him, undecided as to whether to treat him as a member of SG-1 or simply as a 'tag-along'.

"It's a wave of radiation, sir," the lieutenant said, his voice becoming increasingly anxious as he spoke. "It's emanating from the 'gate, spreading fast."

"_That _doesn't sound good…" Spike muttered, not really surprised when nobody answered him; it wasn't like he'd been expecting a response anyway.

"Get them out of there," Emerson said, looking resolutely over at Marks.

Nodding, Marks turned back to the control panel, and a moment later, SG-1 appeared in the middle of the room, dressed in the dull brown robes that they'd put on before going down to the planet's surface.

"What _happened_?" Mitchell yelled, looking in frustration over at the bridge crew.

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Emerson replied briefly

"Sir?" Marks said, glancing over at his commanding officer with a slightly stunned expression. "I'm… not picking up any life signs on the planet."

"What?" Sam said, turning to look at Marks in shock. "But… that's _impossible_."

"Is it a sensor malfunction?" Emerson asked, clearly not wanting to believe the implications any more than anybody else did.

As Sam walked over to check out another panel, Marks glanced back over the control panels in front of him before looking up regretfully at his commanding officer.

"All systems are operating normally," he said, an almost apologetic tone in his voice as he spoke.

"This can't be _happening_…" Daniel protested, as he looked desperately over at Sam. "There are _thousands_ of people on that planet…"

Shaking her head as she studied the screens before her, Sam sighed as she looked forlornly up at Daniel.

"He's right," she said simply. "We're not picking up anything."

Spike could only blink in shock as he turned to look at the planet before him.

In less time than it would have taken the Hellmouth to destroy the Earth if it had ever _actually _been opened…

An entire _planet _had just been wiped out.

Any doubts Spike might have had about whether he was in the right place had just vanished; if these guys were facing something ruthless enough to do something like _that_- never mind the fact that they had the resources to do it in the first place-, he definitely wasn't leaving them alone now that he knew what he was up against.

As he'd told Buffy when Angelus was preparing to let Alcathla out, even back when he was soulless, he rather liked the world the way it was; just because these Ori suckers hadn't got to his section of space yet didn't mean they wouldn't eventually.

Turning around, Spike noted Vala turning around and heading for the corridor out of the control room, apparently unwilling to stick around now that they'd heard the news.

Spike, however, doubted that it was as simple as that.

From what he'd seen of Vala so far, she wasn't the type to geta bit freaked out by the idea of several people dying at once. Hell, he'd read her files, and she already had to deal with the guilt of _causing _several deaths when that 'Qetesh' thing had been hanging around inside her, even if she hadn't been the one in control at the time.

"Something big happen to her down there?" he asked Daniel, jerking his thumb in Vala's direction; the archaeologist looked like he was about to start hurrying after the former thief, but stopped himself when he realised that Spike was talking to him.

"Oh… yeah, kind of," he replied, shrugging off his brown robe along with the rest of the team before he continued talking to the intangible vampire. "Remind me, did we tell you about Adria?"

"Name doesn't ring a bell," Spike responded, shaking his head. "Someone important, is she?"

"She's the leader of the Ori army in the Milky Way galaxy; I'd say that makes her _pretty _important, yeah," Mitchell responded, nodding over at Spike as Sam sat down behind one of the consoles around the control deck and began to study the information on the screen in front of her. "Basically, she's the Ori equivalent of Jesus, I guess is the best analogy; the Ori impregnated her mom to lead their army to bring the word of Origin to the Milky Way, she grew to adulthood practically the week after she was born… you get the idea."

"OK, and the reason Vala's so freaked out by her being there is…?" Spike tried to prod.

"Vala Mal Doran was the woman the Ori impregnated," Teal'c replied bluntly.

Spike blinked.

"Ah," he said, turning around to look in the direction that the former thief had just gone before he turned to look at Daniel. "Uh… could you let _me _have a shot at this?"

"What?" Daniel said, looking in confusion at Spike. "Why do you want me to-?"

Spike, however, had no interest in answering the archaeologist's questions right now; his gaze fixed on the direction that Vala had just gone, he strode forward, walking through the walls of the _Odyssey_ to catch up to her, continuing onwards in a straight line as he went over the likely routes she could have taken in his head based on his experiences here in the last couple of days.

A few moments later- after shocking a couple of crewmembers as he passed through their rooms, vanishing almost before they could even fully register that he was there-, Spike finally caught up with Vala, walking out of a wall to end up almost directly in front of her as she rounded a corner.

"What the- what are _you _doing here?" she yelled as she took in the sight of him standing in front of her.

"Just thought I'd see how you were doing," Spike said, shrugging casually as he put his hands in his pockets and looked at her. "I heard about the whole Adria thing from the rest; way I see it, it's got to be a bit tough, knowing that your kid got wiped out like that no matter what she was-"

"The only thing I feel about _that _whole thing is relief," Vala stated as she stared back at Spike. "Do you think I _wanted _to be responsible for the enslavement of an entire galaxy because I wasn't strong enough to do what had to be done? I knew what she was even before she was born, and I just _let _it happen-"

"Hey, at least you didn't actually do anything she did _yourself_, you know!" Spike retorted, walking up to stand directly in front of the former thief. "The last Big Bad I fought brainwashed me into becoming its little obedient assassin whenever I heard a specific bloody song and I nearly ended up killing the woman I loved before the rest of my side took the trigger out! _You _have nothing to be responsible for; she was your sodding _kid_, for crying out loud-"

"Maternal instinct can only excuse so much, Spike; she was created for the _sole _reason of leading the Ori's armies against this galaxy, and I still did _nothing_ about the pregnancy!" Vala retorted, before she sighed, shook her head, and leant against the wall behind her. "I mean… OK, I _did _tell myself that my relationship with her might prove to be an advantage, that at some point…at some critical moment, I might be able to reach her in a way that no one else could… but, in the end, I'm just relieved that I'll never have to find out."

"Ah," Spike stated simply. "So… basically, you're just grateful that she's snuffed it, huh?"

"Essentially, yes," Vala replied, nodding at him before she leaned in as though to give him a hug before she stopped herself, most likely remembering his intangible status. "But… thanks for trying to talk to me about it; I really appreciate it."

Spike shrugged.

"Any time," he said, trying to sound dismissiv about the whole situation- something about Vala made him feel slightly uncomfortable- before he jerked his thumb back in the direction he'd come. "Anyway, I'm just going to keep an eye on things in the front until they have anything more on what caused this whole thing; you care to come with?"

Vala shook her head.

"Thanks… but I think I'd prefer to be alone right now," she said, before she turned around to walk away once more, only pausing briefly to glance back at the spectral vampire. "Seriously, though, I appreciate your concern; any time you need someone to talk to, consider me available."

"Sure thing," Spike replied, nodding back at her as she turned around and walked away down the corridor, presumably towards her room, as Spike turned in the opposite direction and walked back towards the control room; if he was going ot help out here, he'd like to be in the thick of the action as they figured out what was going on here.

After a return trip through the walls and rooms- once again ignoring his surroundings as he continued in a straight line, taking advantage of his current ability to ignore little things like desks or control panels in his path-, Spike once again found himself on the bridge, SG-1 still standing or sitting at various locations around the bridge as they studied the information coming back from the planet.

"_No chemical or biological agents in the atmosphere_," a voice said over the radio, the speaker (Spike presumed) talking to them from the planet's surface. "_The place is clean_."

Spike had no real experience with this kind of situation, but he was prepared to bet that was odd; even when dealing with magic,

"_The weird thing is_," the voice on the other end of the radio continued, "_whatever it was, it only seems to have targeted living tissue because everything else…was left behind_."

As Sam and Daniel exchanged suddenly anxious glances, Spike suddenly got the distinct impression that the situation had just become far worse than he'd thought- and he hadn't exactly thought it would be easy to start with.

"You said the wave emanated from the Stargate?" Sam asked the lieutenant who'd taken the readings, her expression making it clear that she hoped she'd be told she was wrong.

"That's right," the man said, nodding in confirmation. "From there it spread over the entire surface of the planet before dissipating."

"Oh my God…" Daniel whispered, glancing over at Teal'c, realization having suddenly struck the Jaffa's face.

"What?" Emerson asked, looking in confusion between the various members of SG-1. Spike was only partly grateful that he wasn't the only person who was a bit lost at the moment; at least he knew that he wasn't the only one here who didn't quite get what was going on.

"We know of only one device that would operate in such a manner," Teal'c explained, looking at the vampire as though he would rather have slit his own wrists than face what they'd just discovered. "And it is currently in the possession of my fellow Jaffa, on our world of Dakara."

"Wait a minute; you mean _our _side used that thing?" Spike said, staring incredulously at the planet before them before he looked back at SG-1. "But you sods were _on _the damn thing when they set it off!"

"That's part of the problem right now, Spike," Sam sighed, as she stared at the screen before her. "The Dakara weapon is indiscriminate; everything organic in range of its blast when it's activated is instantly divided at the molecular level, leaving only buildings- and, as we've seen, clothing- intact. When we first used it we were able to reprogram it to only affect the Replicators- an artificial species we were having trouble defeating; it's a long story that's not really relevant to our current situation-, but we'd thought it had been destroyed by the Jaffa High Council after the Replicators were defeated."

"Before you ask why we can't just program it to target those soldiers who follow the Ori," Daniel put in, as Spike opened his mouth as though to ask a question. "It only affected the Replicators because we were able to program the energy wave generated by the weapon to mimic the frequency of the weapon; we can't use it to just eliminate our enemies while leaving our friends standing."

"Ah," Spike said, groaning slightly as he stared at the planet before him once again, rolling his eyes in frustration. "So, basically, these 'Jaffa' guys are just using it without checking to see if it's safe for anyone else who's meant to be on their side?"

"Essentially, yes," Sam said, nodding in confirmation before she sighed and turned to look at Colonel Emerson. "We'd better get in touch with Stargate Command; General Landry's going to want to know about this as soon as possible."

* * *

A few minutes later, the message to Earth having been transmitted, Sam, Daniel, Spike and Mitchell joined Teal'c as he stared out of the window, the Jaffa clearly deep in thought about their recent discovery. For a moment, the various members of SG-1 stood in silence- Vala had retreated to her quarters to reflect on recent events-, until Teal'c finally broke the silence that had settled upon them. 

"I am ashamed that my brothers have utilized these methods," he said, his expression grim as he stared at the stars before him.

"What; because they're doing something a bit ruthless to try and win against these Ori suckers?" Spike asked, looking curiously over at Teal'c. "Not saying I agree with _what _they're doing, but I can kind of get the why of it-"

"There is no honour in such an action," Teal'c said grimly as he looked back at Spike. "Freedom without honour is meaningless, Spike; their motives are irrelevant."

"Look," Mitchell put in, glancing over at Teal'c as he spoke, "as Sam told Spike during our meeting with Marty, we can't change the past; all we _can _do is take advantage of the opportunities we've got available."

"Such as?" Spike asked, glanbcing over at his new 'commander'- if he was going to join the team on a permanent basis, he supposed he'd have to get used to the idea of taking orders from the guy- inquiringly. "Let me say first off, if it doesn't allow me to go down to the planet, I'm not interested."

"Well then," Sam smiled slightly over at him, "you'll be interested; we have an unmanned, unguarded Ori ship sitting on the ground, and you're eminently qualified to check behind any clsoed doors we might discover and let us know if there's anything interesting behind them.

"However," Teal'c put in, as he looked over at Spike, "we must act quickly; there is no telling when one side or the other may dispatch soldiers to take the ship for themselves."

Spike grinned.

"Great," he said, clasping his hands together in front of him as he looked between his new friends. "Well then; let's get moving."

If nothing else, the sooner he could get back and have a chance to talk a bit more with Vala about why _she'd _been chosen to be the mother of this 'Adria' chick the happier he'd be, and he had _no _idea why he was thinking of her more than the others all of a sudden.

* * *

Once the initial 'thrill' of using the teleporter was over- Spike just found it sore, but he freely admitted that it might have something to do with the fact that only the amulet was teleported; he just got dragged along for the ride- Spike had to admit that he found his new surroundings somewhat disappoint. The SGC team may say that these Ori buggers had access to technology beyond anything they possessed, but so far Spike was only seeing more of the same thing he'd seen on the _Odyssey_; a bunch of corridors a few panels here and there. 

True, this place looked a bit less clunky than the _Odyssey_'s corridorshad, but that aside he wasn't really getting much in the way of 'advanced technology' from this place.

"What a dull set-up," he said, voicing his opinion of the place as he stared around him.

Mitchell shrugged nonchalantly.

"Yeah, the corridors are a bit dull; guess the Ori don't want to keep rubbing their presence in their faces in case people start thinking they're compensating for something," he said, a slight smile on his face before he looked over at Vala. "Talking of the corridors, do you know your way around this tub?"

"Sorry, no can do," Vala replied, shaking her head. "All the corridors look the same; I haven't got my bearings yet as to where we actually _are _in the ship."

"And there's no point sending Spike out on recon," Daniel sighed, as he tapped the pocket containing the amulet. "Even if we were sure the amulet's range would allow Spike to travel that far away from it, how would he let us know if he'd found something? He can make sure any rooms we find are safe, but that aside he's mainly here to get a better idea of what we deal with rather than to actually take point."

"Right then, I'll take the amulet and head for the forward section," Sam said, looking at Daniel as she held out her hand. "If there's a control room of some kind, it'll be there, and Spike's aid could be useful if I want to make sure anything's intact or something like that."

"Sounds good," Mitchell nodded, before he turned to look at the rest of the team. "We've got a lot of ground to cover; time to split up if we're going to get this done."

Nodding in confirmation, the six members of SG-1 went their separate ways, Mitchell and Teal'c heading in one direction, Spike and Sam in another, and Daniel and Vala taking a third path.

* * *

A few moments after they'd parted company from the main group, Spike groaned and turned to look inquiringly at Sam. 

"So, just out of curiosity, is this kind of thing normal for you guys?" he asked, raising an inquiring eyebrow at her. "Y'know, going down to another planet and having to deal with some seriously weird stuff with no real clue as to what the hell you're up against or why somebody would do something like whatever they've done in the first place?"

"Uh… pretty much, yeah," Sam replied, nodding in confirmation at the vampire as they continued walking. "I mean, that kind of situation's become less common as time's gone on and we've acquired a greater knowledge of the universe, but in general it's surprising how often we encounter something that can still surprise us."

"Like what?" Spike asked, as he glanced around himself for a door of some kind, only to once again fail to discover anything interesting around him.

"Well, some of our trips through the Stargate have brought us into contact with a civilization that hit old age exactly a hundred days after their birth, a planet where the entire population were stuck in a virtual reality environment- think _The Matrix _without the tubes-, a world populate dentirely by life-forms that were essentially sentient water, fought a species of machines that were intent on replicating themselves across the entire universe, and even set up a base in another galaxy," Sam replied. Noting Spike's stunned expression, she chuckled slightly. "I know it sounds like something from science fiction, but trust me; it's all real, and it's all taken place within the last decade without anyone else on Earth even knowing it."

"Bloody _hell_…" Spike whispered softly, as he stared at the woman he was already beginning to think of as a friend. "And I thought I encountered some weird stuff from the supernatural side of the world…"

Sam shrugged. "Well, that's the way of the world, I suppose; you never really expect that things will turn out the way they do," she said casually, before she noticed an open door off to one side. "Ah, here we are."

As the two of them walked into the open room, Spike whistled softly at the sight that greeted the two of them; the room may not have much in the way of controls- just a few panels on either side of the room with a large screen at the front- but the fancy-looking chair in the middle of the room over the glowing blue lights at least provided _some _relief from the monotony of the place so far.

"Not bad…" he said, half to himself, before his eyes fell on the small pile of cloth and the long staff lying in front of the chair. "What the _Hell_?"

"Oh, that probably belonged to the Prior who controlled the ship; don't worry about it," Sam said, as she raised her radio to her mouth. "Guys, I think Spike and I have found the bridge; the main command interface seems to be a chair, similar to the weapons platform in Antarctica."

"Weapons platform in _Antarctica_?" Spike repeated, looking over at Sam in confusion.

"_It would make sense that the technology would be similar to the Ancients_…" Daniel said over the radio.

"Hold on; the Ancients?" Spike interjected, looking inquiringly over at the astrophysicist. "As in, the _other _lot of 'Ascended beings' you guys have told me about? The ones who actually _made _that 'Stargate' thing?"

"Yes, that's right; any chance you could wait to ask us a few more questions _after _we've sorted out the main issues here?" Sam replied, looking scathingly at Spike for a moment before she continued talking into the radio. "Vala, you said most of the people on board the ship were simple villagers, right?"

"_Yes; why do you ask_?" Vala's voice replied over the radio channel.

"Well…" Sam sighed, as she studied the chair in the middle of the room. "I think it's likely the Priors who are flying the ships. Unfortunately, that probably means the chair's keyed to their unique brain physiology."

"So, in other words, we _couldn't _just use this thing to blow the other ships to bits by making them think we're on their side and then firing?" Spike asked, groaning slightly as he looked at his surroundings; he wouldn't have minded the chance to see _this _baby in action, all things considered.

"_Don't sweat it_," Mitchell's voice suddenly cut in over the channel. "_Plan B is in place; this baby'll be blown sky-high the second you give the word_."

"As reassuring as that is to know, let's not jump the gun _just _yet," Sam said as she studied one of the panels before her. "At the very least, I'd like to try to get some information out of this database before we start blowing things up."

"_I hear you, Sam_," Mitchell replied, "_but it won't be long before the Ori come back for this ship, and we're not going to let them_-"

Mid-sentence, the voice suddenly cut off, closely followed by a sound that vaguely reminded Spike of someone receiving a light electric shock. For a moment, he and Sam just stood there in silence, waiting for something to happen, until Sam spoke into the radio once again.

"Cam?" she asked anxiously. "Cam, what's happening?"

"_Not much_," Mitchell replied, his tone of voice making it apparent that he was being sarcastic, "_but we've got ourselves some company_."

With that, the radio cut out once again, leaving Sam looking at the thing with a clearly-frustrated expression.

"This kind of thing happen often?" Spike asked casually.

"You mean us running into trouble on a supposedly routine mission?" Sam replied, looking up at the vampire. "Variations of it, yes."

Rolling her eyes, she turned the radio back on once again. "Cam, report."

"_It's all right, Sam_," Mitchell replied over the radio. "_Just a little… misunderstanding with some of our Jaffa friends. Go back to work_."

For a moment after the radio cut out, Sam just stared at the radio in her hands, a thoughtful expression on her face, before she turned around and walked over to one of the consoles before her.

"Spike, could you just take a quick look inside this thing?" she asked, indicating the console before them.

"Sure thing," Spike said, stiking his head into the machine for a few seconds before he pulled his head back out and looked over at the lieutenant-colonel. "Well, seems simple enough; just has a few crystals in it."

"Right then," Sam said, reaching over to lift the control console up and study the crystals within it. "If I remember what Daniel taught me about Ancient technology, then, if I do _this_…"

Waving her hands over the crystals in the console before her, she crossed her fingers briefly before uncrossing them after a moment's pause.

"Well, that's all we can do right now," she said, as she looked back over at the vampire/ghost/whatever Spike had become. "Hopefully, I've managed to disrupt the power in the ship without damaging anything significant."

"'Hopefully'?" Spike said, looking critically at Sam. "You mean you don't _know _it's do anything?"

"Look," Sam retorted as she glared at the vampire, "I'm working with technology that's significantly more advanced than most things we've discovered even after ten years travelling throughout the galaxy; I'm doing the best I can, OK?"

"Hey-" Spike retorted, glaring at her as he took a brief step forward, before Sam's radio suddenly activated once again.

"_Sam, we've got trouble_," Daniel's voice suddenly said over the radio, breaking the sudden hostility that had settled over the two. "_We have Jaffa here out for our blood, and I somehow _don't _think they're in the mood to be very cooperative_!"

"Copy that, Daniel; I'll do what I can here," Sam said, before she terminated that call and turned a dial on the radio to open another channel. "_Odyssey_, this is Carter, requesting immediate extraction."

After a moment's pause, Spike was only somewhat disappointed to see that they were still standing in the Ori ship; he may not like the idea of being stuck in a fight situation when he couldn't actually hit anybody himself, but at least he couldn't actually be _hurt _if things got ugly.

"_Odyssey_, what's happening?" Sam asked, speaking impatiently into her radio once again.

"_We're getting too much signal degradation for successful beam-out_," Emerson's voice replied on the other end of the line, which provided Spike with no explanation whatsoever. "_As far as I can tell, the malfunctions aren't coming from _this_ end_."

"What does _that _mean?" Spike groaned, looking in frustration at Sam.

"Oh no…" Sam whispered to herself, looking over at the console she'd been studying earlier before she grabbed at her radio and, after shifting frequencies, once again spoke into it. "Guys, we've got a problem; the _Odyssey_ can't beam us out."

"_Why not_?" Daniel asked.

"Well…" Sam said, looking apologetically up at Spike as she spoke, "I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I _think_ I may have activated the shields."

"_Why would you do that_?" Vala asked.

"It wasn't _intentional_," Sam retorted, prompting Spike to raise an eyebrow; she sounded just a _little _bit sharper to Vala than she absolutely needed to be.

"_Oh_," Vala said simply at that.

"_Can you reverse it_?" Daniel asked.

Turning to look back at the console, Sam nodded grimly as she crouched down and opened one of the compartments before her, staring grimly at the wiring underneath the console.

"I'll do what I can," she said grimly.

With that, she turned the radio off and looked back at Spike.

"Keep an eye on the door," she said, authority clear in her voice. "If anyone starts coming this way, let me know and buy me time to finish off here."

"'Buy you time'?" Spike repeated, staring at her as though she'd grown a second head. "I can't even lift a TV remote; how the sodding hell am I meant to buy you time?"

Sam shrugged in frustration as she turned away from the console to glare at Spike.

"Sing, do a dance, tell a story; just do _something _to keep their attention on _you _rather than _me _until I'm ready!" she yelled, before shaking her head and turning her attention back to the console before her.

After a few moments of waiting, during which Spike was rapidly approaching the point of resorting to playing Paper-Scissors-Stone with himself- your entertainment options were limited when you were stuck as a sodding ghost and didn't even have something interesting on the wall to look at- when Sam's radio suddenly activated once again.

"_SG-1, this is _Odyssey," Colonel Emerson's voice said over the radio. "_Three ha'tak vessels are moving into positions around the planet_."

"Three what?" Spike asked Sam.

"If you want a mental image, they're pyramid-shaped spaceships that were commonly used by the Goa'uld, although these days only the Jaffa keep using them," Sam replied, before she raised the radio to her mouth. "Don't chance remaining there, _Odyssey_; we can't risk losing another ship."

"_All right_," Emerson replied, before Spike could ask what she meant by that 'another ship' comment. "_Be advised that we're leaving range to avoid detection_."

As the radio terminated, Spike stared uncertainly at the radio for a moment before looking back at Sam as she continued to study the console.

"What did you mean, 'risk losing _another _ship'?" he asked, folding his arms as he glared at her. "Did somebody forget to mention something to me?"

"Look, we lost our original flagship and a ship we'd given to the Russians- our relationship with them over the program's existence is a long and complicated issue that this is not the time or place to discuss- due to confrontations with Ori technology; it's nothing _that _serious," Sam said, sighing in frustration as she continued to work away at the console. "Our ships can hold their own against pretty much everything else this galaxy has to throw at us right now; the _Odyssey _could probably handle itself if it had to, but I'd rather it didn't have to unless we exhaust all other options. Now, unless you've got an actual _contribution_to make to this whole situation, can you just… wait over there?"

"Oh, sure, yell at the vamp who's _totally _out of his depth-" Spike retorted, only for Sam's radio to suddenly activate and an unknown voice speak through it.

"_This is a message to all Tau'ri on board this vessel_," the voice said, its speaker reminding Spike of Angelus in his 'I'm-so-much-better-than-everybody' moment. "My name is Bo'rel. My brothers and I have taken this ship in the name of all free Jaffa. We have Teal'c and Colonel Mitchell in custody. Surrender now and no harm will come to them. If you do not identify yourselves immediately, we will have no choice but to assume your intentions are hostile, in which case we will deal with the prisoners harshly."

_Oh, _bugger… Spike groaned, as he and Sam exchanged glances. Spike was simultaneously grateful and ashamed that the same thought was on both their minds; they _couldn't _allow these guys to know they'd found the main control room, or things would just get even _more _ugly.

"_So be it_," Bo'rel's voice said over the radio, followed by a faint electric-sounding crackle that Spike thought he recognised from Teal'c's demonstration on the way over here as a staff weapon. Tensing himself, Spike waited for the sound of an energy weapon hitting flesh…

"_Bo'rel_," another voice said over the radio, "_this is Daniel Jackson of Stargate Command. Listen, there's no reason we should be fighting each other; we should be working together_."

"_I'm afraid that would not be possible_," Bo'rel replied grimly.

"_Look_," Daniel protested, "_we're dealing with some very advanced technology, and we have some experience that might be useful_-"

"_You doubt our ability to fly this ship_?" Bo'rel replied, his voice clearly demonstrating his contempt for Daniel's implication.

"_I'm just _saying," Daniel insisted, trying to dissolve the suddenly-tense situation he'd unintentionally created, "_there's not a lot of time, and it would be in everyone's best interests if we pool our resources_."

"_My orders are to take this ship and all on board_," Bo'rel replied casually. "_You _will_ reveal your location to me _now."

Then the sound of staff weapons powering up was heard over the radio, and Spike barely stopped himself from groaning.

That did _not _sound good…

"_That… won't be necessary_," Daniel replied, sighing over the radio.

"_Bo'rel_," another voice said over the radio, probably one of the Jaffa who'd cornered Daniel and Vala, "_we have them_."

"_Well done_," Bo'rel replied. "_Hold them until our patrols find the control room_."

With that, he terminated the radio link, leaving Sam and Spike exchanging.

"Oh, _crap_," Spike groaned. "I'll take it the situation's bad?"

"About as bad as it could get," Sam replied, nodding in confirmation as she turned her attention back to the console before her. "If I don't figure out something I can do before they get here…"

She didn't finish the sentence, but she hardly needed to; Spike could make a pretty shrewd guess what would happen, and none of it was pleasant.

He may be pretty much untouchable now, but that was hardly the same as being _totally _unkillable; if nothing else, what if the amulet was somehow broken? Would he still hang around if he didn't anything that was actually tying him _to _this plain of existence?

Somehow, he doubted it.

And, given his relative ignorance about alien technology, he _really _wasn't prepared to find out if they had something that they could use to break the damn thing…


	11. Vampires in Space

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: For any exclusively _Stargate _fans out here, when Spike reflects about him being able to get close to a telepath, he's thinking of the vampire's immunity to telepathy; as revealed in the _Buffy the Vampire Slayer _episode "Earshot", vampire's thoughts, like the vampires themselves, don't cast any 'reflection', which means that telepaths can't read anything from their minds (Although a telepathy spell was shown on vampires to work when Willow cast one to communicate with Spike in Season Seven, I'm assuming that Willow's power level, coupled with the fact that the spell was intended to communicate with Spike rather than just read his mind, meant that the usual vampire/telepathy rules didn't apply. Anyway, enjoy

The Ghost in the Team

"Right then," Sam said after a few moments' pause, during which Spike stood at the door and kept as close an eye on his surroundings as he could without putting himself in a position where he could be seen, "I think I've got something here; just wait a minute…"

"Hurry up, will you?" Spike groaned, glancing back at Sam in frustration as he tapped at where his watch would have been if he'd worn won. "We _do _have a bunch of people here who want to kill us, you know!"

He freely acknowledged that it made little sense for _him _to be concerned about that- he didn't even have a body any more; how could he actually be _hurt _in the first place?- but he'd still rather not actually have to get into a fight; if nothing else, he didn't really want to be able to do nothing while watching these guys get killed.

"A few more seconds…" Sam replied, tapping desperately at her laptop, before suddenly slamming it shut with a broad smile just as the power of the room around them turned off.

"_Yes_!" Sam smiled, as she looked back up at Spike. "We've got it now; the power's down and they have _no _idea what they're dealing with!"

"Uh… and we _do_?" Spike pointed out, looking critically at her. "Sorry if I missed some secret military code, but last time I checked we've got an unknown number of guys on here who're perfectly willing to _kill_ us and I can't touch anything!"

"True," Sam said, smiling slightly as she picked up the Prior's staff in one hand and her own weapon in the other. "But _they _don't know that, do they? Look, all you need to do is distract them when they show up and give me time to fire, OK?"

For a moment, Spike tried to come up with a reply to that query that wouldn't make him sound like a moron, but eventually he sighed and shrugged it off.

"OK, let's do this," he said, groaning as he turned towards the corridor. "Any ideas where the others might be?"

"Given where they were going when we arrived, I _do _have one or two ideas on that front," Sam confirmed, nodding slightly at Spike as she walked out of the control room and began to walk briskly along the corridor; evidently she wanted to move fast without making too much noise. Hurrying along in front of her- once again trying not to think too much about the fact that he could only just feel the ground beneath his feet and still wasn't making any actual sound-, Spike quickly fell into a pattern of halting at corners and waiting for Sam to catch up; he might not be able to get hurt in this state, but he _really _didn't want Daniel to get mad at him because the astrophysicist got hurt-

_And when did I start to worry about what that bloody archaeologist thought_? Spike wondered as he stopped before another corner. _I mean, he hasn't actually _done _anything for me so far…_

Except, of course, for spending the last few days whenever he'd had a moment to spare working with Sam to try and help Spike learn what had actually happened to him after the amulet thing, to say nothing of continuing to trust him even after learning the truth about his past. Ever since Spike got his soul back, only Buffy and Andrew had ever seemed to _totally _accept him back in Sunnydale- everyone else always seemed to generally tolerate him more than anything else-, but here?

Even after everything SG-1 had learned about him, they still accepted him.

Plus, he had the definite impression, from the time he'd spent with the two of them, that there was _something _going on between those two that maybe not even they'd realised yet…

Call him a sap, but even when he was soulless he'd had a certain fondness for the whole 'people-who-haven't-realised-how-they-_really­_-feel-about-each-other' thing; he didn't feel like being responsible for these two not even having a chance to admit how they felt.

Glancing around the next corridor, he smiled slightly as he finally saw something useful; Mitchell and Teal'c, currently being surrounded by a bunch of guys with similar tattoos to Teal'c- none of them _exactly _the same, Spike noted; he'd have to ask what was with the different styles later-, standing around as one figure who appeared to be the leader looked impatiently at his surroundings, as though waiting for something or someone.

Turning around to look back at Sam, Spike jerked his head at the corner, unwilling to risk speaking at the moment; he wasn't sure how sensitive these suckers' hearing was, so he didn't want to risk giving away their position early by speaking.

Nodding in understanding, Sam went up to the end of the corridor, peeked briefly around the corner, and then stepped back to hit the staff lightly against the wall. A moment later, a Jaffa walked around the corridor, only for Sam to promptly bring the Prior's staff down onto his head, sending him collapsing to the ground. Pulling out a strange black object that Spike vaguely recognised from the SGC firing range when he'd been trying to get somebody to destroy the amulet- he thought it was called a 'zat gun' or something like that- Sam stepped around the corner and fired some kind of energy blast. Stepping around the corridor after her, Spike was just in time to see another Jaffa hit the ground before Mitchell grabbed his own weapon and 'zatted' a third Jaffa, leaving him and Teal'c unguarded.

"Didn't know you knew how to use one of those things," Mitchell said, indicating the staff Sam held with a slight smile.

"Well," Sam said, shrugging nonchalantly, "piece of cake, really."

"Too bad that the reason we even _needed _the sodding thing wasn't that simple…" Spike groaned, before he shrugged nonchalantly and glanced back at the other two members of SG-1. "So, how's things with you?"

"Oh, been questioned a lot about what we're doing here, what our motives in helping to free the Jaffa were, that kind of thing," Mitchell explained, shrugging dismissively before he looked inquiringly at Sam. "So, what's the situation outside this dreary old corridor?"

"It's not good, I'm afraid," Sam replied, shaking her head apologetically as the four of them began to walk away from the downed Jaffa. "The _Odyssey_ tried to beam us out of here, but somehow the shields had been activated. At first, I thought it was something I'd done, but after checking the controls, I realized it wasn't me…"

"So there's someone else on board." Mitchell concluded.

"Hold on; someone _else _did that?" Spike said, looking incredulously at Sam. "And you couldn't have mentioned that _earlier_?"

"It didn't seem relevant at the time; there was nothing you could have done about it anyway," Sam informed the vampire before she turned back to look at Mitchell. "Anyway, we can't expect any help from the _Odyssey_; three motherships showed up and took up an orbiting position around the planet, and they had to retreat in order to avoid being detected."

"Then the Stargate is our only means of escape," Teal'c said grimly.

"Right then," Sam said, checking the pocket containing Spike's amulet- if they were going to make a run for it, it would hardly help if Spike ended up stuck on board because the amulet had fallen out- before looking back at Mitchell. "We'd better get going; see if you can get in touch with Daniel and Vala and let them know what's happening here."

"Right then; just give me a moment…" Mitchell muttered, reaching over to grab a radio from his pocket and raise it to his mouth. "Jackson, Vala, come in; if you can hear me, we're getting the hell out of dodge."

As SG-1 prepared to move on towards what Spike could only presume was some kind of exit for this place, Spike paused, something suddenly… _tugging _at his mind. It almost felt like that time when the First had triggered his mental commands to override the chip, except that this time there wasn't any music and it wasn't quite as focused.

It was like… if the First's trigger had been a subconscious hook to reel Spike in to do its bidding, this was like the mental equivalent a fisherman going out at night and shining a light into the water to attract his catch. Spike didn't feel like he _had _to check this out, but at the same time, he wanted to find out what it was…

Then an explanation hit him.

That 'Orici' chick they'd mentioned earlier… hadn't she been meant to be like the Ori equivalent of Jesus? She must have _some _kind of freaky powers if she was in charge of an army that was meant to include those 'Prior' guys; from what he'd been told on the trip here in the _Odyssey_, they were meant to have some mental powers, so it seemed like a safe bet that Adria had them herself.

OK, so she was meant to have been killed when that weird energy wave hit the planet; after all his time in Sunnydale, he should have realised that the Big Bads would _never _go down that easily, no matter _where _you- or they, come to that- were from.

Spike was just about to ask his new teammates if that was a possible explanation for what was going on when the Ori ship suddenly powered up, the lights automatically coming on.

"Sam?" Mitchell asked, looking inquiringly over at his friend.

"I don't know-" Sam began, only to be halted by a sudden rumbling around them. The rumbling stopped almost as soon as it had begun, but Spike suddenly felt a strange sensation around him, as though something was _moving _around them…

_Oh bugger_, Spike groaned.

If they hadn't just taken off from the planet right now, he'd be _very _surprised…

"That's bad, huh?" he said, glancing over inquiringly at his friends to confirm his theory.

"We're flying and we have no idea who's in control; I'd call that bad, yeah," Mitchell agreed, nodding over at the vampire.

"Let's get moving," Sam said, indicating the corridor that she and Spike had just walked down. "I might be able to override primary systems from the control room."

"And what if we find the person _flying _this thing there?" Spike asked, looking critically over at his new friends. "Don't know about you, but I'm not _entirely _eager to find out who could have _survived _that 'Dakara weapon' thing you told me about if those Prior guys are meant to be the only people who can actually _steer _this thing…"

"We'll worry about that when we get there, Spike," Mitchell said, as he checked his gun- Spike vaguely recalled that the thing was called a P-90- as they walked. "The first lesson you need to learn about being on an SG-team is simple; don't give up just because the bad guys are _really _big."

"So, in other words, same principle as when I was in Sunnydale, huh?" Spike asked, sighing slightly as they continued to walk. "Well, if I could fight against the First sodding Evil, I suppose I can deal with _this_…"

Then they turned a corner, and Spike found himself and his new friends standing in the control room of the Ori ship once again, still empty with no sign of a pilot or any kind of Ori influence.

"OK, here's a question," Mitchell said, looking over at his friends. "_Who's flying this boat_?"

"Well," Spike put in, "judging by the little itch I'm getting in the part of my brain where I think the First kept its little trigger thing to turn me into its little lap dog, I'm guessing we're talking someone with access to some serious mental _oomf_…"

Noting the sudden stares of the other three, he raised an eyebrow.

"What?" he asked, going over what he'd said before his face fell. "Uh… look… about that whole 'mental trigger' thing I just mentioned… would it help if I told you I had it taken out and the thing doesn't work any more?"

"You had a mental trigger stuck in your head by an Ascended being that made you do whatever it _wanted _you too?" Mitchell said, looking critically at Spike, seemingly ignoring the vampire's attempt to defend himself. "Sorry, but that's the kind of thing you're meant to _tell _people when you're having a psychiatric evaluation for a top-secret government operation, you know; we're meant to _know _if there's something that could jeopardise your role in the program!"

"Hey, the sodding thing got shut down ages ago and nothing's tapped into it since; I just didn't think there was any point bringing it up!" Spike protested as he looked at them. "Look, the sucker that stuck it there isn't around any more, the trigger's been shut down, and I know how to tell that the thing's been turned back on again so I'd let you know if anything was going on like that; can we just get this over with and get _moving_, will you?"

For a moment, there was silence as the three members of SG-1 looked around at each other, until Teal'c nodded and looked over at Sam.

"He makes a valid argument, Colonel Carter," the Jaffa said, nodding slightly at her. "When I was temporarily brainwashed by Apophis to believe that my original defection to the Tau'ri was false, you all nevertheless accepted me back into the fold. We have achieved independent confirmation from Captain Finn that the entity that triggered Spike's programming has been destroyed, just as Apophis has been; it would be hypocritical of us not to trust Spike because he was once brainwashed when you have trusted me after similar circumstances."

After a moment's pause- during which Spike made a mental note to ask Teal'c for more information about that intriguing-sounding story when he had the time-, Sam and Mitchell glanced inquiringly at each other and nodded, Mitchell subsequently turning back to Spike.

"Right," he said simply, staring in a neutral manner at the vampire that made it clear to Spike that this particular line of inquiry wasn't over yet. "You think that Adria's the one piloting this thing based on this 'feeling' you're getting in your brain? We've not got a better explanation now; we'll go with that. So-" here he turned to Sam, "-since we're here anyway, any chance you can hack into this sucker's systems and stop this thing from going wherever it is it's going?"

Sighing, Sam pulled out her laptop, crouched down on the ground, plugged the computer in, and pulled up the information from her earlier survey.

"I'll do what I can, but I'm not making any promises," she said, before she began to rapidly tap at the keyboard once again. "Look, can you just see what you can do about contacting Daniel and Vala again?"

"Right," Mitchell said, nodding at her as he tried his radio again. "Jackson, come in."

After a moment of static, Mitchell sighed and tried again. "Jackson, Vala, can you hear me?"

After another few moments of silence, Mitchell sighed and put the radio back in his pocket before he looked over at Sam. "We'll have to go out there and look for 'em. Sam…?"

"I'll keep at it," Sam said, nodding at her commander before she glanced over at Spike. "You go with them, Spike; an extra pair of eyes there would be more help than it would be-"

"In other words, get out from under your feet, mmm?" Spike asked, looking at her with a frustrated sigh before he turned around and walked out of the control room after Mitchell and Teal'c. "See you around; I'm off."

As soon as he stepped out into the corridor, however, Mitchell and Teal'c having already gone a few metres down in one direction, Spike turned around and began to walk the other way.

If anyone had asked him what he was up to, he would have lied through his teeth about his real motives, but right now, with that nagging feeling in his skull starting to feel like it was blaring out a warning system of some kind, he felt that he almost had a _duty_ to see what was causing it. If he found the source, he could let the others know where the screwy bitch (If he was right about it being this 'Orici' bird they kept mentioning) was without her even knowing; he somehow doubted that _alien _telepaths could be that different from the demon ones he'd encountered in his time.

_Simple enough_, Spike assured himself as he walked along the corridor. _Follow the headache, see if I'm right about the cause, find somebody to help me kick her arse and turn this sodding ship around, and we're sorted. What could be easier_?

* * *

After several minutes of walking, Spike was beginning to think he should have reconsidered his 'plan'- if you could call it that; looking back, it had been absolutely _pathetic_. The ship was way too big for him to be sure that the 'Orici' would stay where she was long enough for him to get somebody else there to fight her if he even found her, and what was _he_ going to do if he found her; _taunt _her into submission? Even assuming she was exaggerating about the whole 'Jesus' thing she claimed to have going for her, he couldn't _touch _anything, for God's sake; he'd be sodding _useless_ even if he _did _manage to track her down! 

Reaching a door on one side of the corridor, Spike glanced inside it, and instantly leapt back out of sight when he saw Daniel and Vala talking to some chick in a shoulderless gold dress that could only be this 'Adria' bird they'd been talking about earlier, standing in a simple room whose only form of furniture was a table with a blue tablecloth draped over it and a couple of torches that reminded Spike slightly of a Prior's staff in terms of design.

The dress she was wearing wasn't a clear sign to her identity, of course, but Spike somehow doubted a race who claimed to be 'gods' would allow their average follower to wear something like that. This woman was either someone important to the Ori religion or she wasn't with them in the first place, and Spike was pretty confident that the odds of it being the second one were slim to nothing.

"Adria," Vala was saying; risking a glance around the edge of the door, Spike watched her stare desperately at the other woman as she stepped forward slightly, "listen to me-"

"I'm sorry, mother," Adria interrupted casually. "The time for talking is over."

Pausing, she turned her head slightly, as though looking at something that only she could see, before she spoke again. "We've arrived."

"Wait, we've _arrived_?" Daniel said, looking almost incredulously at Vala. "But you've been here with us; how could you have sent the ship to Dakara this _fast_?"

"The will of the Ori is capable of many things, Daniel Jackson," Adria said, looking at Daniel with a smile that Spike found particularly worrying. "Do not doubt what they are capable of; their spirit is here in me, even as it steers this vessel to its destination."

Spike's eyes widened in shock.

If he'd understood what she was saying there correctly…

She's _flying this sodding thing from _here?! he thought; he only just managed to stop himself letting out an extremely vocal curse at the implication there.

If she could pilot something this _big _just by _wanting _to control it…

Even after having to go toe-to-toe with Glory, the prospect of going up against somebody capable of something like _that _wasn't something Spike wanted to have to deal with.

"Look-" Daniel began.

"Silence," Adria interrupted. "I have… something to attend to."

After a moment's silence Spike chanced a glance around the corner, only to see Adria standing silently near the middle of the room, her back to Daniel and Vala who were staring at her in confusion.

Personally, if Spike had been in their position he would've attacked the loony bitch the first chance he got, but given that she was apparently _flying _this thing right now, he supposed it might be a good idea to leave her as she was; there was no guarantee that knocking her out wouldn't send this thing hurtling into an asteroid or something like that.

After Spike, Daniel and Vala had watched Adria stand that way for a moment- the other two so far unaware of his presence outside the room-, the 'Orici' turned back to look at her mother and the archaeologist.

"You should thank me," she said nonchalantly to them; her casual attitude was _really _starting to get on Spike's nerves by this point. "I just saved your lives."

"What are you talking about?" Vala asked.

Before Adria could reply, the sound of footsteps suddenly reached Spike's ears, coming from the direction that he'd just walked in. Unwilling to let anyone else see him until he'd come up with some kind of plan for dealing with this situation- he'd rather not have to waste time explaining what he was doing here when he was trying to figure out a way to fight like this- Spike dashed across the doorway and hid around the corner of the corridor, his back to the outer wall of the room. With one ear up to the wall, Spike could still hear what was happening inside the room, and he could easily get to Adria if he heard something that suggested things were going to get ugly- not that he was sure what he'd _do _if that happened, but at least he'd be trying-, but his presence would still remain unknown until he wanted it to be.

"_It won't be that easy_," Daniel was currently saying on the other side of the wall; Spike could only presume he was referring to Adria's plans to conquer the galaxy via organised religion.

"Why wouldn't it be?" Adria replied, in the typically condescending tone of all arrogant villains. "_I'm about to destroy the only real threat against us_."

"_You're forgetting about someone_," Daniel stated, his tone level despite the weapons-fire that still struck the door to the room. "_What about the Ancients_?"

"_You know as well as I do they'll never get involved_," Adria retorted; her voice may have been just as casual as Daniel's, but her tone was so smug it reminded Spike of Angelus in the poof's bad days. "_We have free rein in this galaxy_."

"_Adria_," Vala suddenly interjected, "_listen to me. I promise to stay with you. I'll hear you out on the whole Origin thing. I'll… even try and keep an open mind_."

She paused for a moment, and then spoke again. "_Just let everyone else go_."

"_It's too late for them_," Adria said simply, as though she was apologising for having forgotten to buy milk at the shops rather than saying she'd allow some of her mother's friends to die.

"_But don't worry_," she added, in a reassuring tone that- to continue the earlier shopping analogy- sounded like she was telling her mother that she'd purchased a little treat for her to make up for the lack of milk. "_I'll be keeping him alive_."

For a moment, Spike wondered who she was referring to with that comment, but then she added "_We have plans for you_," and he instantly became certain that she was talking about Daniel; he _was _the only other person in the room right now.

'_Plans', huh_? Spike mused to himself, a grim expression on his face as he reflected on the possible implications of that statement. _Now, doesn't _that _sound cheery_…

Before anything more could be said, however, Spike heard a faint sound- it vaguely reminded him of a deep whistle, if that made any sense- through the wall, and suddenly there were two less heartbeats inside the room on the other side. For a moment Spike wondered what could have happened, and then he recognised the sound; the teleporters that had 'beamed' him and SG-1 up to the _Odyssey_ (Well, beamed SG-1 up; he'd been dragged along with the amulet in Daniel's pocket).

_Hold on a minute_… Spike mused to himself, as he suddenly realised something. _If they've _all _been beamed out- no way somebody would just beam Danny-Boy and Vala off without the other three- what am _I _still doing here_?

There was only one explanation; Sam must have dropped the amulet at some point and it had stayed behind while she'd been beamed off.

Before he could continue that train of thought, a massive wave of something- Spike had no idea what it was, other than that it was setting his 'supernatural-sense' off like crazy- passed through him, raced along the corridor, and suddenly the staff-weapon fire around the corner had stopped.

"What the…?" Spike muttered, looking around the corner in confusion at where just moments ago a bunch of Jaffa had been firing at a wall, and now only a pile of clothing and their staff weapons remained to show they'd been there in the first place…

If Spike had possessed a beating heart, it would have frozen then and there.

It was _exactly_ like what had been left of that Prior in the control room after that 'Dakara Superweapon' thing had been used.

Which, coupled with Adria's comment about her being about to destroy the only thing in the galaxy that could actually _threaten _her side, led him to conclude that they were right over Dakara right now, and the idiots down there had just used the weapon to try and save themselves.

Which meant, unless these 'Jaffa' guys had some extra perks he didn't know about that would allow _them _to survive that 'weapon' thing that must have just been used against the ship, he was the only person left who could do anything about Adria's plans to destroy the Dakara Superweapon.

_But I can't even _touch _anything right now_! Spike mentally yelled; he couldn't _believe _that he could be in a position to help only to learn that he couldn't do anything in the first place. _How am I meant to_-

Wait.

The implication struck him so suddenly he couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to him before.

Based on what he'd heard, Adria was able to move this ship by sheer force of will (And the freaky powers given to her by her 'daddies', of course).

Sam had been telling him practically since she'd run the first tests that he should still be able to interact with objects if he focused enough on touching them.

What if the problem wasn't a lack of _focus_… but a lack of _will_?

What if, instead of _focusing _on trying to hit Adria, he just went in there and hit her like the loony bitch she was?

After all, if she could summon up the willpower to get a massive spaceship moving around when she couldn't be much older than a year- according to Sam and Daniel, the Ori only found out about life in this area last year, and Spike had certainly seen stranger things in his lifetime than a chick who could become an adult in that kind of timeframe-, surely he, with over a century of experience under his belt, could summon the mental energy to _punch _her?

_Well_, Spike resolved as he stared at the wall before him, _got nothing to lose, and a _hell _of a lot to gain by trying_.


	12. When Vampire Met Orici

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Regarding how Spike is able to actually punch Adria despite the fact that she has that necklace that protected her from the Dakara weapon, I'm assuming the necklace's protection only extends to less conventional energy-based attacks; after all, with the mental powers available to her, it's unlikely that the Ori would have been concerned about her getting _punched_, so why would they have provided her with a means of protection from that when she was more than capable of doing it herself?

The Ghost in the Team

Barely even taking time to register the loss of her would-be attackers as the energy of the Dakara Superweapon, Adria raised her hand, her mind resolutely fixed on the destruction of that very weapon.

As much as she regretted the necessity of what she was about to do, if the word of Origin was ever to be successfully spread throughout the galaxy, this weapon, and the people who wielded it, would have to be eliminated.

Raising her hand as though she was about to fire a weapon she held in it, Adria focused her power and her will, preparing to smite the planet before her for defying the word of her fathers…

And then a powerful kick struck her in the side of the head, sending the Orici flying off to one side and breaking her concentration.

"Sorry, love," a voice stated from where she had been standing mere moments ago, sounding unutterably smug with itself, "but I don't really _do _the whole 'standing by while the planet gets blown up' thing- even if it's not _my _planet that's going to go boom-, and given what I've heard about your lot, I somehow _doubt _you're here to just nicely ask these Jaffa sods to stop using this 'Dakara Weapon' I've heard so much about."

"What?" Adria asked, cradling her apparently bruised cheek as she stood up and turned to look in the direction of the voice that had spoken.

To her confusion, standing in the middle of the control room, apparently unaffected by the recent attack from the Dakara weapon, was a tall man with almost white hair, dressed in a long black coat, dark trousers, and a red shirt of some kind. At first glance, Adria would have taken him for a human due to the lack of a tattoo on his forehead that was common to all Jaffa, but even a cursory look at his face revealed a twisted appearance that belonged to no species Adria could identify.

Then her initial confusion faded, to be replaced by resolve; no matter what else became of her in this moment, she was the Orici, and she would _not _countenance such treatment, even from one of the people she sought to save.

"Who are _you_, who would _dare _to strike the Orici?" she asked, getting back to her feet and facing the intruder, scorn clear in her face.

"Name's Spike," the 'thing'- for lack of a better term; he was no lifeform that Adria could identify, at least- said, grinning casually at her before his gaze narrowed, his golden eyes almost seeming to glow in a Goa'uld like manner. "And, right now, I'm the man who's going to kick your sodding arse unless you leave that planet _alone_!"

"Really?" Adria asked, smirking slightly as she felt the balance of power shift once more in her favour. Reaching out with her mind, she prepared to grab the man before her and hurl him into a wall, putting him down until the moment when he would realise how futile his actions had been from the beginning…

Only for her to find nothing in front of her to throw.

"What?" Adria asked, unable to keep the fear out of her voice as she looked at this seemingly bodiless man before her; she could _sense _a life-presence of some kind there, so he wasn't a hologram, but he didn't seem to have any kind of actual body that she could actually _touch_. "How…?"

"Am I a 'ghost'?" 'Spike' replied, grinning casually back at her. "Don't rightly know for sure, wouldn't tell you even if I _did _know, and, right now, don't much care about the specifics of it."

Glaring in a resolved manner at Adria, Spike's mouth twisted into a slight smile as he stared at her. "All that matters to me is that it lets me kick your arse."

Before Adria could even try to come up with a new plan of attack, Spike had launched another punch at her, sending her staggering backwards, a sudden pain spreading across her lip. Confused, Adria raised her hand to her mouth, and, much to her shock, it came away bleeding.

This… _thing_… had made the _Orici _bleed?

For the first time since her birth, Adria felt a brief trickle of fear about something other than disappointing her fathers.

This thing may have been an abomination in the sight of the Ori, but it was an abomination that could actually _hurt_ her… and worse, it was an abomination that she could not hurt _back_ to make him see the error of his ways. If only she had more time to work out some effective counter-attack…

Time, however, was something that Spike clearly wasn't willing to give her; before she could do much more than scramble back to her knees, Adria felt the heel of Spike's boot pressing against the back of her neck, slamming her against the ground and prompting another brief flash of pain as her nose hit the floor with an unpleasant crunch.

"Now then," Spike said, his voice cold as he stared down at her, his heel still pressed against her neck, "unless you want me to _keep _hitting you- and trust me, I worked with a master of torture for years; I know just what to do to put you down without actually _killing _you-, I'd appreciate it if you'd take me to the control room and tell me how to send a message to anybody who might be listening. Got me?"

After a moment of silence, Adria sighed in resignation.

As much as she hated to admit it, she couldn't make this _thing _see the error of his ways when she couldn't even touch him. All she could do was go along with his demands, wait and see what happened, and try and figure out some way to turn this situation to her advantage

"I… understand," she said, inwardly fuming at the disrespectful attitude of this 'man'- if man he was- even as she acknowledged that she had to go along with his demands.

"Good," Spike said, releasing the pressure on her neck as she hauled herself back to her feet. "Now then, let's go on a little walk to the control room, shall we? I don't know about you, but I don't _really _want to turn on something that I shouldn't and blow this thing up; even if it didn't kill me, drifting about in space is _not _my idea of fun, and I don't think it's yours either."

As much as she hated to admit it even to herself, Adria had to acknowledge as she walked that her foe made a valid point; she wasn't even sure if _she _could survive the destruction of the ship if it should explode.

As she had thought earlier, all she could do was go along with her current situation until another option presented itself to deal with this arrogant upstart; if her fathers had taught her anything, it was that patience was an essential part of any campaign.

Even as she walked, however, she couldn't shake the slight fear that she felt as the creature that had just actually _hurt _her walked slowly behind her, his hands constantly visible out of the corners of her eyes as though they were just itching for her to give their owner an excuse to grab her head and twist it.

She was rapidly coming to the conclusion that her best chance might just be to run rather than to try and figure out a means of fighting this abomination when her usual methods had so spectacularly failed; she still couldn't think of a single weapon in her immediate arsenal that _wasn't _dependent on the subject having both a physical body she could attack _and _a mind she could read.

* * *

As he stood in the temple of Dakara, the group of Jaffa in the room having waited a few moments to allow the weapon to take effect, General Landry was barely able to stop himself from hitting Se'tak as the man looked casually at the Dakara Superweapon's controls before turning back to look at him. 

God, if he didn't need to remain diplomatic if he was going to have any chance of making his point, he would have just punched the Jaffa leader and damn the consequences.

The man may just have _killed _three of the few people who the galaxy literally owed their very _freedom _to at this point- one of them the person who started his people on the path to freedom in the first place-, and the only thing he seemed to care about was the fact that Earth had apparently been suppressing their control when they'd only wanted to work together to coordinate an assault on the Ori.

"The ship has been halted," Se'tak said, a slightly smug tone in his voice as he glared at the general. "Your attack on Dakara has been thwarted; the Ori warship is once more ours."

"And I keep telling you," Landry retorted, "my people have _nothing _to do with this. We only object to your use of the weapon against innocent people; we do _not _object to you taking power-"

"_Hello_?" a voice suddenly yelled over the radio in Landry's pocket- the only communication device in the room, which he'd brought along in case he needed to be informed of new developments at the SGC-, breaking the chain of conversation between the two men. "_Sorry about the delay in replying up at this end; took a _stupidly _long time to get to the control room from where we were_…"

Landry's eyes widened in shock as he pulled his radio out of his pocket, ignoring the critical looks from Se'tak- evidently he felt that Landry's not having mentioned the radio earlier was further proof that Earth didn't see the Jaffa as true allies- as he forced himself to focus on the more immediate concerns right now.

"_Spike_?" he yelled into the radio, unable to fully believe that the vampire was actually talking to him _now_, of all times. He vaguely registered that Se'tak was looking at him in a critical manner, as though angered at the lack of respect Landry was showing him, but Landry had questions that needed answered right now; Se'tak would have to wait a few moments. "What the hell are you _doing _here?"

"_Saving the sodding planet, Hank m'boy; what _else _do you do when you're on SG-1_?" Spike asked, sounding like he was restraining a slight smile as he spoke. "_Sam must've dropped the amulet before everyone else got beamed off the ship by the _Odyssey_; found myself alone with this 'Orici' bird who was piloting the thing, and figured I'd make myself useful by taking her out before she could do anything_."

"The Orici?" Se'tak repeated, looking critically at the radio in Landry's hand, before he walked over to yank the radio out of the general's hand and raise it to his own lips. "I am Se'tak, ruler of the Free Jaffa Nation; who are you, and what do you mean when you say you have 'taken out' the Orici?"

"_Oh, so you're the guy who was firing that weapon at us_?" Spike's voice replied, apparently unconcerned about the potential consequences of talking to the ruler of an entire people in that manner. "_You know, you sods _really _need to think more about friendly fire; you nearly _killed _the rest of my team. Hell, you probably _would _have sodding killed _me _if I wasn't already dead… well, kind of…_"

"You are 'kind of' _dead_?" Se'tak repeated, looking critically up at Landry. "Do you know what this fool is talking about?"

"Well…" Landry said, pausing for a moment to come up with a convincing cover story that wasn't a total lie- he'd tell them all the truth about Spike later, but for the moment he doubted the Jaffa would believe that Spike was a vampire who'd sacrificed himself to stop the First Evil- before continuing, "while on a mission, Spike- it's a kind of nickname he prefers to be known by; even I'm not sure what his real name is- encountered a device that apparently disintegrated him only for him to be 'restored' later in an intangible state."

"An intangible state?" Se'tak repeated, looking critically at Landry. "If he can touch nothing, how is he capable of communicating with us now?"

"Colonel Carter theorised that Spike would be capable of influencing his environment if he concentrated enough," Landry clarified, as he looked up at Se'tak. "He hadn't managed to get the hang of it last time I saw him, but if he took out the Orici, it seems like he managed to master that particular talent since then."

Taking the radio back from Se'tak- fortunately the Jaffa appeared more than slightly bemused by what he'd just learned and didn't argue about the action-, Landry activated the radio once again.

"OK, Spike," he said, unable to stop himself from enjoying a slight smile as he spoke- after all, Spike may be a new member of the SGC, but it was still good to see his faith in his staff justified-, "now that you've taken the ship, what do you want us to do?"

"_What else_?" Spike asked, sounding like the answer was obvious. "_Get somebody from down there up _here_; I can't threaten this Adria bird _and _pilot this thing, you know_!"

"Right," Landry said, still smiling as he looked up at Se'tak. "I'll have some people up there as soon as I can, I assure you; in the meantime, just make sure Adria doesn't do anything. Clear?"

"_Crystal_," Spike replied, before he terminated the call. Putting the radio back in his pocket, Landry turned to look at Se'tak, trying not to grin too much at this vindication of his organisation.

"As you heard," he said, nodding politely at the Jaffa before him, "we have recaptured the Ori battlecruiser, and I would be most grateful if your people would accompany me to properly secure it; Spike's still new to the whole experience of being on an SG team, and even if he wasn't, he could hardly be expected to secure the ship himself."

For a moment, Se'tak stared grimly at Landry, as though coming to a decision, and then he finally nodded and turned to look at one of his fellow Jaffa.

"Assemble a contingent of Jaffa and have them assemble here," he said. "We shall dispatch a ha'tak to secure the ship-"

"Actually, that won't be necessary; Ori battlecruisers are equipped with ring transporters," Landry interrupted, looking at Se'tak as he spoke. "We can travel directly to the battlecruiser without the need for a ship; it should allow us to more rapidly secure the more vital parts of the ship in case other Ori forces show up."

For a moment, Se'tak looked as though he was going to protest, and Landry wondered if he'd been a bit too direct in his 'orders'- he didn't want to risk jeopardising their relationship with the Jaffa any more than it already seemed to be- but the Jaffa leader simply nodded.

"A good plan," he said simply. "We shall meet you at the ring transporters shortly; be prepared to leave as soon as we arrive."

"Of course," Landry said, nodding briefly at the man as he and his associates departed, leaving only Landry and Bra'tac in the room.

As soon as the last Jaffa had departed, Bra'tac turned to look at Landry with a relieved smile on his face.

"It is good to know that your teammates have managed to triumph over the Ori," he said, before he looked more curiously at the general. "However, I am uncertain about who 'Spike' actually is; is he a new member of the SGC?"

"He's a bit of a complicated story, but yes, he's on the team," Landry nodded in confirmation at the master Jaffa. "Actually, he's officially on probationary status; this was only his first mission, and the main plan was to see how he'd handle himself given his current… condition, but he seems to have handled himself well enough."

"To have defeated the Orici and acquired control of an Ori battlecruiser?" Bra'tac said, smiling slightly as his eyes turned upwards towards where the battlecruiser in question floated even now. "I would certainly say he has 'handled himself' well for his first mission among you."

* * *

A few minutes later, Landry and a small group of Jaffa- Bra'tac in the lead to avoid any command dispute; he at least was somebody that everyone could agree deserved to lead this kind of 'expedition'- were walking through the corridors of the Ori battlecruiser, weapons drawn in case of any unexpected attacks. As they turned into the control room, Landry smiled slightly as he saw Spike and Adria in the middle of the room, Adria slumped in the control chair as Spike's hands hovered threateningly around her neck. 

"Ah, you're here," the vampire said, smiling broadly up at General Landry before his eyes turned to the Jaffa around the general. "And which of you guys nearly turned my friends into atoms?"

"_Spike_…" Landry groaned as he glared at the vampire, who turned to look at him as he spoke, "do you _have _to phrase things like that?"

"I'm a to-the-point kind of bloke, your Generalness; it's got me through life so far and I'm not planning on changing it any time soon," Spike explained simply before he turned back to look critically at Se'tak. "And can I say, I really do _not _like the idea of nearly getting disintegrated because you triggered some sodding large weapon to try and stop the bad guy without paying attention to the little details."

"I took what action I felt was necessary to ensure the survival of my people," Se'tak stated grimly as he glared back at Spike. "I seek only to preserve my people; what is your excuse for your actions?"

"Save the sodding world; what else?" Spike replied, shrugging nonchalantly as he jerked his head at Adria. "I mean, don't get me wrong, grateful that you took out the rest of the crew on this thing- made it easier for me to focus on taking down this screwy bitch- but did you _have _to risk killing _us _as-"

"What my… colleague… is _trying _to say," Landry muttered through clenched teeth as he glared briefly at Spike before looking back at the Jaffa, resolving to try a more diplomatic tactic than just 'Don't use the weapon' this time around, "is that, while we don't deny the potential value of the Dakara weapon against the Ori, we object to its indiscriminate use against innocent people simply because you cannot see any alternative. We are _not _suggesting you simply stop using it, or only fire it where we tell you to fire it; we simply feel that we can better stand against the Ori if we work together rather than trying to attack the Ori independently and potentially jeopardising each other's plans. If we can determine the location of an uninhabited planet with an Ori ship in the vicinity, or a planet where it's clear that the Ori presence is so strong we won't be able to do anything to convert its people, the weapon can be considered, but trying to act independently against the Ori is a futile gesture when we can accomplish so much more against them as allies. "

"He speaks the truth, Se'tak," Bra'tac said, stepping forward to better address the new leader of the Jaffa council. "The Tau'ri do not seek to control us as the Goa'uld and the Ori would do; they simply acknowledge that, by fighting side by side, we are capable of delivering far more devastating blows to our enemies than we would be if we attempted to fight them separately. Striking out with this weapon does indeed have merits as a means of vanquishing the Ori, but if we do not coordinate our efforts to limit the danger to innocent people, we risk becoming as despised and feared as the very things we seek to defeat."

"What he said," Spike added, nodding briefly at Bra'tac before he turned back to Se'tak, taking care to make sure that Adria was still aware of his hands around her throat in case she tried to say something. "I've tackled some weird stuff in the last few years before I joined this organisation- long story there; maybe I'll tell you it later-, and I always learned one thing; the more big guns you're packing when the time comes for the final crunch, the better the chances you'll walk away at the end of it."

After a moment's silence, Se'tak nodded thoughtfully.

"You make… a good point, Landry and Spike of the Tau'ri," he said, nodding thoughtfully at them both before he focused his attention on Spike. "And, of course, we cannot overlook the fact that you have saved our people's most sacred place, when we had given you and your associates no reason to act in our defence. We owe you a great debt, and I shall be sure to inform my people of this fact."

"No need to thank me; I just have a thing about people blowing up worlds," Spike said nonchalantly; he somehow doubted these people would appreciate it if he started punching the air and yelling as Angel to take that on his stupid big forehead and . "It's a bad habit of mine I got into a few years back, and I'm not that interested in getting over it."

"I… see," Se'tak said, looking slightly confused as he looked back at Landry. "Is he… always like this?"

"He's a bit difficult to get used to, but he came with good recommendations," Landry replied, smiling slightly back at Se'tak as he began to relax for the first time since arriving on Dakara. "Trust me; his attitude's a bit… unusual, to say the least… but I'm pretty sure he can be counted on when you need him."

After a moment's silence, Se'tak looked inquiringly at Spike.

"You would truly fight to save any world from destruction at the hands of the Ori?" he asked, his voice neutral.

"The Ori, these Goa'uld and Replicator buggers I've heard so much about, the sodding minions of her Great Loonieness Glorificus; you name it, I don't want it to destroy a planet," Spike shrugged. "It's all a bit pointless, really; I mean, even when you're able to go into space, destroying planets'll probably result in you ending up destroying the bit you're standing on at _some _point, right?"

"An… intriguing philosophy, Spike of the Tau'ri," Se'tak said, nodding slightly at Spike before he turned to look at Landry. "Your colleague has given me a… great deal to think about. I shall order that all use of the weapon shall cease until we can both come to a mutual decision on what should be done with it."

"Thank you," Landry replied, nodding back at Se'tak before he indicated the ship around them. "In exchange for your generosity, any analysis made of this ship will be done on Dakara itself, and I will ensure that all Jaffa are made aware of any weaknesses or discoveries we make about the Ori technology-"

"Fools," Adria stated simply.

"Excuse me?" Spike said, looking down at her even as she glared up at him. "You're calling _us _the idiots? Who beat up _who _here, I might add?"

"You seek to understand what is beyond your comprehension," Adria stated grimly as she glared up at Spike before she turned her attention to Landry and the Jaffa gathered before her. "You cannot defeat the Ori; their will is all, and they _shall _bring enlightenment to this galaxy-"

"Blah blah blah; does it ever occur to you that this galaxy might be _happy _being the way it is?" Spike pointed out, walking around to stand in front of Adria and smirk slightly at her. "Now look, seriously, you've already had your head handed to you once today; don't you want to just give up now and come along quietly?"

"_Never_," Adria stated coldly, as she raised her hand to her necklace, pressed down the centre of it, and suddenly vanished in a burst of white light.

"What the _hell_?" Spike yelled, looking over at Landry in confusion. "What the sodding hell just happened?"

"She teleported away," Landry replied, groaning as he clasped his head in one hand. "_God_, I'm an _idiot_; I should have _known _she'd try something like that…"

"Se'tak!" one of the other Jaffa said, indicating a control console off to one side. "There is something taking place here; I believe that a ship is being launched."

"Look!" Bra'tac said, pointing at the window before them, beneath which was spread the vast shape of Dakara and the stars beyond it. As Spike, Landry and the Jaffa watched, a small tube-shaped spaceship flew through the space before the Ori battlecruiser before flying upwards, away from the planet, and subsequently vanished in a flash of white light.

After a moment's silence, Spike groaned and glanced back and Landry.

"Her escape pod?" he asked.

"Most likely," Landry acknowledged. "She must have had a short-range teleporter on her that allowed her to reach that ship in the event that this battlecruiser was ever boarded or attacked and she needed to get away."

"A sensible conclusion, General Landry," Bra'tac said, nodding in agreement at his friend, before he allowed himself a slight smile. "However, we must not let ourselves become downhearted. Today, we have not only deprived the Ori of another of their battlecruisers, but we have also acquired one of the very ships that have so plagued us since their arrival, and with it, access to the secrets of our enemies."

"Indeed," Se'tak said, nodding in agreement at Bra'tac. "Thanks to the actions of Spike of the Tau'ri, we have achieved a great victory, and demonstrated to the Ori that we shall not surrender to their advances across this galaxy. This day marks a turning point in our fight against our enemies."

"Uh… bravo?" Spike said, smiling slightly sheepishly at the Jaffa around him, once again trying to restrain the undignified urge to run around whooping like a loon at this latest turn of events.

His first mission and he'd _already _managed to make a significant impact on the fight with these Ori buggers? An impact on a fight on such a whopping big scale that none of the Sunnydale gang could have ever _imagined _fighting in a struggle of that size?

_It's official_, Spike grinned to himself as he looked around at his new allies, _I am _definitely _liking the way things are going for me here_!


	13. A Vampire in the Jaffa High Council

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

"OK, so hold on a minute here; you're telling me you managed to _hurt _Adria?" Vala asked, looking incredulously at Spike a few hours later as they all stood in the briefing room of the SGC, Spike's amulet in Daniel's pocket once again. After the _Odyssey _had disengaged the hyperdrive, SG-1 had beamed down to the nearest planet to alert the SGC to the loss of both Dakara and Spike- they'd only realised that he hadn't been with them after they'd managed to escape the Ori ship-, and had all been shocked to learn that not only had Spike survived, but he'd actually managed to _defeat _Adria and save Dakara.

"Well, y'know, when the other bugger can't hit you but you can hit _them_ when you focus enough, it's simple enough to kick some telekinetic demi-god arse," Spike replied, shrugging casually back at Vala with a smile on his face as he saw her evident approval of his actions (And when had her opinion started to matter to him). "Just needed to focus on how much I wanted to wipe that smug, 'I'm the offspring of a God and can do anything I want' smirk off her face, and bingo; I can make contact."

"Just like Sam predicted you could, eh?" Mitchell put in, smiling over at their vampiric teammate. "Bit of focus, and bam; it's like you still have a body, huh?"

Staring wistfully down at his fist for a moment, Spike shook his head.

"Not quite; bit harder to focus like than you'd think," he said, shrugging slightly as he looked back up at his new friend (And he still couldn't believe how easily he'd started thinking of these guys as friends; he was an even bigger freak _here _than he was among the Scoobies, and they _still _had no problems with him being what he was, although he freely admitted that the fact that he'd never tried to kill them probably helped him there). "Think the only reason I managed to land so many blows was the fact that I knew specifically what she'd do if I let her do what she was planning to do; got the impression that it wouldn't have been that simple if I just had a vague idea what she was capable of."

"Oh," Vala said, looking slightly disappointed as she looked at Spike. "So… you couldn't say, maintain a solid form for anything that _didn't _involve fighting…?"

Spike shook his head.

"Unlikely; hard enough just maintaining contact for _that_," he said apologetically, as he studied his fists, trying not to let his mind think too much about why that fact made him feel particularly depressed when all he was doing was looking at the dark-haired alien ex-thief. "I mean, I could probably pick stuff up, but don't ask me to carry anything for more than a few seconds; I'd probably drop it."

"Indeed," Teal'c said, before he glanced over at Sam. "Does this match your predictions of Spike's abilities to physically manipulate the world around him despite his non-corporeal status, Colonel Carter?"

"Well… essentially, yes," Sam said, nodding as she looked slightly apologetically at Spike. "You have to take into account, Spike, you're willing your body to violate pretty much everything we thought we knew about artificially-induced intangibility; normally matter in your condition shouldn't make any kind of impact on the world around it, yet you already generate body heat and brain activity without even trying. Forcing your body to even assume a corporeal status long enough to punch an opponent must be surprisingly draining; quite frankly, I'm impressed you were able to maintain your focus long enough to convince Adria to stop her attempt to attack Dakara."

"Well, her own ego might have helped him on that front as well," Daniel added, looking briefly at Valal before he looked over at Sam and Spike. "After all, from what Vala and I learned while talking to her, Adria's absolutely convinced of her own divine status; it's possible that the fact that Spike was able to hurt her at all was such a shock to her that she didn't really feel like putting up much of a resistance in the first place."

"Oh, way to make me feel better about myself, mate…" Spike groaned, before the door opened, admitting General Landry and ending any further conversation for the moment. As the members of SG-1 took their seats around the conference table- Spike naturally continuing to stand to avoid falling through the seat-, Landry took his position at the head of the table and smiled gratefully at the group around him.

"Firstly," he said, turning to look specifically at Spike as he spoke, "I would like to make it clear that, while the IOA are still opposed to the idea of you gaining full membership of an SG team so soon after… arriving… at the SGC, your recent actions in the defence of the Jaffa High Council and the Dakara superweapon have resulted in us winning back a great deal of trust from the Jaffa that some members were beginning to doubt we deserved, to say nothing of granting us an opportunity to take an in-depth look at Ori technology that we would not have had if you had not been present."

Spike shrugged.

"No bother, your Generalness; always happy to help," he said casually; he wasn't going to call the man before him 'Sir' or anything poncy like that, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to show _some _kind of respect to the guy after he'd let Spike stick around here despite his somewhat 'dodgy' background.

"Good," Landry said, nodding briefly at Spike before he turned to look over at Sam and Daniel. "Which brings me back to my second point; since we now have access to the Ori battlecruiser, you two are to report to Dakara as soon as possible to take an in-depth look at their technology. As the resident experts on both fields, the Jaffa High Council has agreed that permitting you to collaborate with them will provide our research into finding any potential weaknesses will provide us with the best chance of success-"

"Hold on; _permitting _them?" Spike interjected, looking incredulously over at the general. "We saved- hell, _I _saved; only one who could've pulled it off after that whole mess with them firing that bloody weapon at us- their sodding arses by taking out that ship, and they're actually saying that we're only _permitted _to send a couple of geniuses over to look at the sodding thing? I'm the only reason it's even _there_, for God's-"

"And _this _is why you weren't appointing to SG-9; you're good in a fight, but you're definitely _not_ a very diplomatic guy," Mitchell commented, smiling slightly over at Spike, who simply stared back at him in a frustrated manner before he looked back at Landry. "What about the rest of us, sir?"

"For the moment, you're expected to do nothing but wait," Landry responded, looking briefly over at Mitchell before turning to look at Spike and Teal'c with a slight smile. "However, you two have been given an invitation to accompany Doctor Jackson and Colonel Carter to Dakara if you wish; apparently the Jaffa High Council are very interested in offering their personal congratulations to the Hero of Dakara."

Spike blinked.

"Hold on a minute; the _bosses _want to congratulate me _personally_?" he said, staring incredulously at Landry. "But… well, didn't they do that _already_?"

"As I understand it, they're more interested in an official congratulations this time around; after you saved them all, Bra'tac convinced Se'tak that a public recognition of our role in saving Dakara would go a long way towards re-establishing the bonds between us," Landry explained, as he looked at Spike. "Teal'c will, of course, accompany you to ensure that you don't unintentionally do anything to offend them during the meeting, and will naturally be entrusted with the amulet."

"Uh… fair enough," Spike admitted after a moment's reflection. He wasn't exactly wild about having somebody coming along just to keep an eye on him, of course- he was over a hundred and twenty years old, for crying out loud; he wasn't some stupid fledgling who barely knew his place in the pecking order-, but given that he was getting into a totally new situation right now, he supposed that it would only be sensible for him to have a 'native guide' to make sure he didn't screw anything up by accident.

"Excellent," Landry said, nodding at Spike and Teal'c before he turned to look over at Mitchell and Vala. "Well, that just leaves you two with nothing immediate to do; I hope that's not going to be an issue."

"Oh, no problem at all," Vala assured him, smiling casually at the general before she looked over at Mitchell. "So, now that we have some free time, do you have any preferences for our extra-curricular activities?"

Swallowing slightly, Mitchell glanced over at the other members of the team as though asking for assistance, but was met only with slightly sympathetic smiles as they stood up (Although he did notice Spike's gaze lingering on Vala for a moment in a manner that Mitchell found particularly interesting) and walked out of the briefing room, followed closely by General Landry.

After a moment's uncertain silence, Mitchell sighed and looked over inquiringly at Vala.

"So," he said, smiling in a somewhat uncertain manner, as though he wasn't sure how she was going to react to what he was about to say, "given that we've not got anything that needs attending to right now… care to get out of here and stretch your legs for a bit?"

"Oh, you mean like a date?" Vala asked, smiling at him in that manner that had always reminded Mitchell of a hungry cat studying its prey before it pounced (The same look that she used to have when looking at Daniel). "That could be fun…"

Mitchell groaned slightly as he looked up at the ceiling.

Why was it that this kind of thing was always funnier when it was happening to one of your friends rather than when it was happening to you?

* * *

As Spike stood in front of the Stargate a couple of hours later, Sam, Daniel and Teal'c standing around him- Sam and Daniel were in the traditional combat fatigues while Teal'c was wearing some kind of armour that reminded Spike of what the Jaffa had been wearing earlier-, he was unable to stop himself from feeling a certain satisfaction at going on his second trip through this thing in only a matter of days, particularly when he considered the reason why he was going through in the first place. 

_Who'd have thought it_? he mused to himself, as the Stargate's inner ring began to spin and the 'chevrons' around it began to light up. _Barely a week on this team, and I've already got myself a pretty decent rep_…

As the Stargate activated- the now-familiar 'kawoosh' effect of water apparently exploding outwards taking place as the wormhole was established-, Spike swallowed slightly and turned to look at Daniel, who had agreed to take the amulet through the Stargate before handing it over to Teal'c.

"Well," the former would-be poet said, shrugging slightly as he looked at Daniel in a foolish attempt to appear nonchalant; this part of the whole gate travel thing wasn't something he particularly liked, but it was the only way to be sure that he and the amulet wouldn't accidentally suddenly have several billion miles between them. As Daniel, Sam and Teal'c walked up towards the Stargate, Spike took a deep breath, literally stepped _into _Daniel's body, and then, after the momentary disorientation that always seemed to happen when they went through the Stargate, found himself standing back on Dakara.

"_Damn_…" he muttered as he stepped out of Daniel, glancing back over at the archaeologist as he flexed his shoulders. "Y'know, the intangibility schtick may be cool, but if I ever needed a reason to get my sodding body back, it's to not have to do _that_ every time I want to go through the gate."

"Tell me about it; do you think _I _like having to have somebody else in my head any longer than I have to?" Daniel retorted, before he shook his head and turned his attention back to the temple before them. Fortunately, most of the Jaffa had agreed to congregate around the temple of Dakara itself in order to properly thanks Spike for his actions in their defence, so there were only a few Jaffa currently standing in front of the gate, all of them those that were already aware of the intangible vampire's true nature. These, of course, included Se'tak and Bra'tac', the latter of which smiled gratefully upon seeing who had accompanied Spike for this task.

"Teal'c," he said, smiling warmly at his old pupil as he stepped forward to clasp the younger Jaffa's hand. "It is good to see you, my friend."

"And the same to you," Teal'c responded, inclining his head slightly at his former teacher, speaking in a lower voice to avoid attracting Se'tak's attention. "I wish to take this opportunity to thank you for your willingness to defend the Tau'ri against the high council in recent times; it is always good to know that we possess at least one ally here on Dakara."

"You are welcome," Bra'tac replied, before he turned to look at the others. "Colonel Carter, Daniel Jackson; it is good to see you both again."

"The same to you, Bra'tac," Daniel replied, as he and Sam nodded slightly at their second Jaffa ally before he turned to look at Se'tak. "So… where's the Ori battlecruiser?"

"At present the cruiser remains in orbit," Se'tak replied simply. "We have yet to determine the necessary steps involved in controlling it successfully enough to land it without risking damage. We have identified which system control the life support systems and managed to organise our research into the ship's technology to ignore anything relating to those circuits, but that aside our attempts to learn anything new about the technology have progressed little; any… assistance… you can provide would be appreciated."

Daniel and Sam simply nodded in response to his comment, both grateful that the Jaffa leader didn't seem to be holding on to any trace of his old 'anti-Tau'ri' attitude that had driven him to use the Dakara superweapon in the first place.

"Well," Daniel said, as he looked hopefully at Se'tak, "if you could just direct us to… however we're getting onto the battlecruiser… we'll get down to business."

"Agreed," Se'tak said, nodding briefly at them before he glanced back over at Teal'c, Bra'tac, and Spike. "The three of you may travel to the temple; our people are anxious to meet the man who saved Dakara for us. I shall join you once Daniel Jackson and Colonel Carter are aboard the Ori battlecruiser, and then business can begin."

"Of course," Bra'tac said, nodding briefly at his fellow council member before he turned back to Spike and Teal'c. "Come, my friends; we must not keep the council waiting."

"Teal'c?" Daniel called over to his friend just as the Jaffa had turned to leave, reaching into his pocket to pull out the amulet. "Don't forget this."

Glancing back, Teal'c smiled in a slightly amused manner as he realised that he had almost forgotten the one thing required for Spike's presence to be guaranteed at the conference, raising one hand to catch the amulet as Daniel tossed it over to him.

"Hey, watch it!" Spike yelled over at the archaeologist as Teal'c tucked the amulet into a pocket on the side of his Jaffa armour. "I happen to need that thing, you know!"

"Spike," Sam said, shaking her head slightly as she looked over at him, "we've already determined that it's practically indestructible unless you release a phenomenal amount of energy on it; do you really think it's going to break because we're throwing it about?"

"Well… it _might_," Spike protested weakly, before he shook his head and turned back to the two Jaffa before him. "Anyway, let's do this."

With that, he walked off in the direction of the temple, Teal'c and Bra'tac swiftly catching up and walking alongside him while Sam, Daniel and Se'tak headed off in another direction.

"If I may ask," Bra'tac asked after a moment's walking, looking inquiringly at Spike, "why do you require the amulet that Daniel Jackson threw over to us?"

For a moment Spike paused uncertainly and glanced over at Teal'c- they'd agreed before leaving not to let anybody know the full details about Spike's status unless they were confident that the people in question could be trusted-, but the Jaffa's confirming nod was all Spike needed to know that the man currently asking the question could be trusted.

"Long story short?" he said, glancing back at Bra'tac as he spoke. "I'm somehow bonded to that thing in some technical way I don't really get; I move too far away from it, and it's like I'm on some massive rubber band?"

"Some massive… what?" Bra'tac asked, looking in confusion at Spike.

"Spike means that, should he move further than a certain distance away from the amulet in any direction, he shall instantly be returned to it the moment he exceeds that distance," Teal'c explained. "We have attempted to determine the cause of this bond and the exact limits that Spike is able to travel from the amulet as a result, but so far we have no more specific idea than around a mile or so in any direction."

"I see…" Bra'tac said, nodding thoughtfully as he studied the pocket currently holding the amulet before he looked back at Spike. "Am I to assume that the amulet is connected to the reason for your currently… intangible status?"

Spike shrugged casually.

"Was wearing it when the damn thing was used to channel a nigh-on-phenomenal amount of energy to take out this ancient sucker back on Earth," he said, trying to stick to the original decision to give the Jaffa everything they asked for without giving them the full picture; it would take too long to explain everything about demons right now, and they didn't really have the time to waste on issues like that. "Thing vaporised me at the time, and when it got sent to the SGC…"

He waved a hand through Teal'c's staff weapon by way of demonstration. "Sodding thing activated and I came out of it like this."

"I… see," Bra'tac said, looking at Spike in an inquiring manner for a few moments before he smiled slightly. "Well, as strange as your tale may be, I can assure you that all at the council are grateful for your role in recent events. Had we lost Dakara, there is little doubt that many of our brothers would have perceived it as a divine punishment for attempting to defy the Ori, and we would have become divided once again. You have done us a great service, Spike of the Tau'ri."

Spike shrugged nonchalantly at the comment, trying not to look too smug at the praise the master Jaffa was giving him; he had a feeling he'd be getting a decent amount of it once they reached their destination, so he'd better get some practice in now to take it well so that he didn't end up making an ass of himself later.

"Eh, it was nothing," he said, trying to sound like he saved civilisations every day of the week (It wasn't like stopping alien ships was that different from stopping people from opening hellmouths, right?) "Just did what anybody would have done-"

He quickly stopped himself from completing the sentence; tact may not have been his strong point, but even he knew that mentioning the weapon again wouldn't have been a particularly smart move on his part. "Never mind."

"Quite," Bra'tac said, before he turned his attention back to the temple before them; Spike had been so busy talking to the others he'd missed the fact that they'd made it all the way up the steps to what looked like a corridor into the main part of the building. "At the end of this corridor are the current members of the Council for the Free Jaffa Nation, all of whom are most anxious to meet you."

"Well then," Spike said, smiling slightly at Bra'tac before his attention returned to study the door before him, "let's get in and meet 'em, shall we?"

Nodding in agreement with his new teammate, Teal'c led the way down the corridor, Spike and Bra'tac directly behind him until they finally reached a door that led into a decently-sized room with a large table inside it. Apart from a slight gap in one side of the table that seemed to be intended to allow somebody to stand in the centre of the seats around the table, the table was almost a complete circle, with various seats around it, all but three of them currently occupied by a Jaffa dressed in similar robes to those worn by Teal'c and Bra'tac. Spike guessed- correctly, as it turned out- that two of the currently-unoccupied seats were intended for his two new associates- it was still too early to think of SG-1 as 'friends', particularly after all the time he'd spent with the 'Scoobies'-, and the third seat was intended for that Se'tak guy.

"We going to wait for the other guy?" he asked, indicating one of the empty seats as he glanced over at Teal'c.

"Se'tak is a prominent individual within the Jaffa High Council; it is only fitting that we wait for him to return from showing Colonel Carter and Daniel Jackson to the Ori ship," Bra'tac said simply as he glanced over at the vampire (With, Spike was pleased to note, a slightly distasteful expression on his face; evidently he didn't like waiting for the guy who'd nearly killed Spike's new team any more than Spike did). "Teal'c and I shall take our seats; you, however, must wait outside the centre of the table until Se'tak arrives, at which point you may enter the centre of the conference so that we may discuss what you did."

"Discuss?" Spike repeated, looking in confusion at Bra'tac. "What's there to discuss?"

"Your motives for your actions," Bra'tac said briefly, before he and Teal'c headed for their seats, leaving Spike to stare at where they'd been standing.

After all that he'd done in taking out that ship- saving the planet, giving them access to the bad guys' tech, showing their foes that they weren't the top of the pecking order any more-, these buggers still wanted to question his _motives _for doing it? Why did people have to obsess over that kind of crap so much; did it really matter _why _he didn't want worlds to end?

God… if it wasn't Buffy wondering why he didn't want Angelus to wake Alcathla up, it was _this_…

Spike blinked.

He'd just realised that was almost the first time he'd really thought about Buffy since he'd sat in on that meeting about that dumb 'Wormhole X-Treme' movie thing. He hadn't _forgotten _her or the others, of course; it was just that, ever since he'd learned the scale of the threat his new associates had to deal with, coupled with the fact that he wasn't going to go anywhere unless they mailed the amulet to wherever Buffy was (And that would probably just be way too complicated; how would he manage to stay close enough to the thing not to get painfully yanked around without anybody noticing him?), he'd pretty much pushed her aside to focus on his new life.

_His new life_…

_Is this what my life's going to be now_? Spike mused to himself as he looked around the room that he was now standing in, several billion miles away from everything he knew back on Earth, on a planet whose existence he hadn't even known about a few days before now. _Fighting omnipotent aliens as a sodding ghost-vampire thing_?

Unless they figured out a way to make him solid again, it probably was.

And the weirdest thing was… Spike was actually kind of looking forward to it. After all, he really wasn't entirely sure about returning to the Scoobies after going out in that kind of blaze of glory; it wasn't like he'd _known _he'd come back, of course, but he wouldn't it past the one-eyed man to claim that he had known about it to try and make him look bad.

Besides…

Spike sighed.

The fact of the matter was that, back in Sunnydale, he'd always kind of felt like he was living in Captain Forehead's shadow, even if it wasn't intentional. He almost hated to admit it, but Angel had made a kind of decent point back during that thing with the Coalition for sodding Purity; everything Spike had ever really done in his unlife, either Angelus or Angel had done it first and done it better.

Here on SG-1, however?

Wasn't a problem; none of these guys had even _heard _of Angel before Spike showed up. He could finally be his own person for once, without anyone either trying to make him fit an old role, or making him feel like he was just taking somebody else's place, and this time he didn't even need to worry about his old weaknesses causing a bit of a handicap when things got ugly.

OK, so he had an entirely _new _set of weaknesses to worry about now that he wasn't really solid and bonded to that sodding amulet; what silver lining didn't have its cloud? The lack of the sunlight weakness definitely helped, and at least he almost certainly wouldn't have to deal with crucifixes or stakes in this line of work…

A polite yet clearly impatient cough from off to the side attracted Spike's attention back to the table, and he realised- much to his frustration- that Se'tak had arrived while he'd been lost in thought; getting sloppy wouldn't win him many points with a warrior group like these guys seemed to be.

"Sorry; thinking about things," he said briefly, before he strode forward to stand in the middle of the circular table before him, subsequently folding his arms as he turned to stare directly at Se'tak. "Now then, got anything specific you want to ask, or is this just a general questioning?"

"We simply wish to know your reasons for acting to save Dakara," Se'tak responded, his own current stance making it clear that he was attempting to establish the chain of command in their current situation. "Did you wish to attempt to win us back to the servitude of the Tau'ri?"

"OK, firstly, I only joined the sodding Stargate program a few days before; do you really think I'd have had time to take in the fine details about who we were kicking alien arse with and whether or not they might think my group has ulterior motives beyond just wanting to take out the big bads?" Spike asked, trying to avoid explicitly insulting anybody while still making it clear that he thought they were being idiots for thinking that his allies just wanted to replace the Goa'uld. "Secondly, I think somebody destroying a planet is something _anybody _should want to stop; it's just bloody stupid to keep blowing up perfectly good worlds when things on them are normally fine the way they are."

"'Fine the way they are'?" Se'tak repeated inquiringly.

"Argument I used the first time I did this whole 'save the world' thing; I've changed so much since then that it doesn't matter what I meant at the time," Spike said hastily (He didn't want to have to explain the full details about how he'd changed over the years since he'd first arrived in Sunnydale; that would just make this whole thing too bloody complicated). "What _hasn't _changed is the fact that, when you get down to it, I don't want the world- _any _world- to get blown up; I happen to generally like things staying intact."

He shrugged slightly. "Guess that's one reason I got on SG-1 in the end; we all want the Ori taken out without too many worlds getting taken out in the crossfire."

"For what purpose?" Se'tak asked bluntly, standing up in his chair to look at Spike.

Turning his attention towards the Jaffa before him, Spike answered the question in a manner that he would have answered it whether he was good or evil.

"Mass murder's pointless," he said simply.

(OK, so admittedly back when he'd been evil mass murder would have been _fun_, but the point still remained that he'd only done that kind of thing when he'd had the numbers to make sure that everyone they attacked would be drunk from in the end; technically, those deaths _hadn't _been pointless as they'd kept the vampires fed.)

Fortunately, his slight bending of the truth appeared to not have been enough to make the man before him doubt his words. After staring silently back at Spike for a few moments, Se'tak sat back down, a slightly satisfied smile on his face as he looked at Spike.

"Very well," he said, nodding briefly at the spectral vampire before him. "You have given us… a great deal to consider, Spike of the Tau'ri."

Even as the Jaffa continued talking, Spike allowed himself a brief inward sigh of relief as he listened to the rest of their speech.

He wasn't sure how things would go from here, but if their reaction to what he'd said now and what he and Landry had said earlier was any indication, the relationship between Earth and these guys was _definitely _going to improve in the next few hours…


	14. The Vampire and the Jaffa

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

A few hours later, the meeting with the Jaffa High Council concluded and no other business immediately demanding his presence down on Dakara, Spike found himself standing on the bridge of the Ori battlecruiser once again, this time having been sent to the place by those 'ring platform' things that reminded him a bit of Stargates turned onto their sides. As the intangible vampire stepped away from Teal'c's body- the Jaffa had taken the amulet on this occasion, with Spike deciding to 'hitch a lift' as he normally did when travelling through the Stargate, just in case it made a difference; the yank he felt suggested that he still got left behind at first-, he smiled slightly as he saw Sam and Daniel turn from the control consoles to look at the new arrivals, holding up a hand to wave at them.

"Hi there," he said casually as Teal'c tossed the amulet towards Daniel. "Everything good up here?"

"Spike?" Sam asked, looking curiously at the two new arrivals. "What happened down there?"

"For his actions in defence of Dakara and the Free Jaffa Nation, as well as his great victory in the war against the Ori by both claiming this battlecruiser for both the Jaffa and the Tau'ri and by defeating the Orici in single combat," Teal'c stated, a slight smile on his face as he looked over at the vampire, "Spike has become the first member of another species to be granted the title of blood kin to all Jaffa."

Daniel and Sam's eyes widened.

"You were _what_?" Daniel said, turning to look at Spike with an incredulously stare that quickly shifted to become a broad grin. "That's… that's incredible!"

"Tell me about it; not too shabby, all things considered," Spike said, smiling nonchalantly at his new friends as he clasped his hands and flexed his neck slightly.

"It is an honour you richly deserve, Spike," Teal'c said, smiling slightly as he looked at his new friend. "Were it not for your actions, the Free Jaffa Nation would be divided amongst itself with the loss of Dakara, and many may even question whether the Ori are truly false gods or real ones; you have ensured our continued unity against the greatest threat our galaxy has ever known, and provided us with a means to learn far more about their technology than we could ever have done so otherwise. You have made a great difference in the affairs of the galaxy, Spike; you should be honoured."

"Trust me, I am," Spike said, looking around at the ship he was currently standing on with a broad smile on his face.

_A great difference in the affairs of the galaxy_…

If it was possible, Spike's grin grew even wider at that thought.

If that wasn't getting out of Angel's shadow, he didn't know _what _was; he'd just helped to save an entire _galaxy _from the bad guys!

OK, so he hadn't won the war single-handedly or anything like that; it was still a pretty good move from where he was standing.

"Anyway," he said, clasping his hands together as he looked around the ship whose capture had essentially earned him an alien knighthood, "enough about me; how's things been going up here?"

"About what you'd expect, really," Daniel replied, shaking his head slightly as he looked up at Spike. "We've managed to make some decent progress in translating what controls make the ship do what, but that aside we're having some difficulty in working out how everything connects together. What we have discovered, however, seems to demonstrate that Sam was right; it looks like a Prior is required in order to actually get the ship started in the first place…"

"So, in other words, we're screwed unless one of those buggers defects?" Spike said, only noticing after he spoke the uncomfortable looks that were subsequently exchanged between the three SG-1 members. "Not likely to happen, huh?"

"No, we… well, we tried that once, and it didn't work out," Sam explained, glancing over at Teal'c as though asking whether she should continue, only for the Jaffa to shake his head and start to talk himself.

"Almost a year ago, the Ori were able to convince Gerak, one of the members of the Jaffa High Council, to convert to Origin, subsequently transforming him into a Prior at approximately the same time as we faced an outbreak of the Prior's Plague- a fatal disease that they commonly unleash on worlds that reject Origin- here on Earth," Teal'c explained.

"Hold a minute… didn't they talk about that on the news?" Spike asked, looking inquiringly over at Teal'c. "I mean, I didn't exactly get cable down in the crypt- didn't seem worth the cash, given that I could go to… some friends'… if I wanted to watch anything, but there was this whole thing about a virus causing a mass shut-down of something like every airport on the sodding _planet_ before they got a vaccine for the damn thing?"

"Indeed," Teal'c said, nodding slightly in confirmation before he continued. "Having made contact with Gerak after putting him in a position where he would either have to wage war on his fellow Jaffa or listen to me, I was able to make him see that loyalty to the Ori was no different to swearing our loyalty to the Goa'uld, and he agreed to help us cure the plague on Earth. However, as soon as he had cured those who suffered from the plague within the SGC- thus allowing us to isolate an antibody that could be used to treat the plague-, he immediately burst into flames. We have never determined the precise reason for this, but our most likely explanation is that it served as a 'fail-safe' created by the Ori in the event that any Priors turned against them, which was triggered when Gerak actively used his powers in a manner that the Ori would not have permitted them to be used in."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding briefly in understanding before he sighed and studied the ship around him. "So, since we can't get one of those buggers on our side without them possibly blowing up, there's no way we could just take this thing and use it to blow the crap out of its fellows, huh?"

"Not really, no," Sam said, shaking her head as she stood up from the console she was currently examining to look reassuringly at Spike. "But, on the bright side, we should be able to use the ship's computer to get some idea of its strengths and weaknesses; if we can work out, for example, the frequency of their shields we can adjust our weapons to compensate and possibly penetrate their defences more easily, or even modify our own defences to better resist their weapons. We may not have acquired a new weapon directly, but we _have _acquired something that should help us learn how to better defend ourselves against them in future confrontations."

"Oh," Spike said simply, before he shrugged slightly and turned to look over at Teal'c. "Well, as long as we're here, anything T and I can do?"

"Well… if you could take a look around the ship and let us know if there's anything else of interest in here that we could use, that would be appreciated…" Daniel said, looking slightly uncertain as he spoke, evidently uncomfortable with asking his two teammates to do something so simple. "I'm sorry there isn't anything else, but…"

"There is no need for you to feel uncomfortable, Daniel Jackson; Spike and I are well aware that our skills are not of any immediate benefit to the current situation," Teal'c assured his old friend, before he glanced back to look at Spike. "Come, Spike; the sooner we begin this examination, the sooner we may return to Earth."

"Amen to _that_, T m'man," Spike replied, nodding at the Jaffa before the two of them walked out of the control room, subsequently heading down the corridors in a purposeful manner.

* * *

It was only after they had walked around a few corners, noting a few empty rooms that seemed to be little more than crew quarters, that Spike finally broke the silence that had temporarily settled over the two men.

"So… you're a Jaffa, mmm?" he asked, turning to look at Teal'c curiously. "How'd you end up working on Earth, anyway?"

"When I originally met the Tau'ri, I served as the First Prime of Apophis, one of the greatest of the System Lords," Teal'c replied, turning slightly to look at Spike as the two of them continued to walk. "I had long harboured my doubts about Apophis's divinity, and when I encountered O'Neill in a prison and witnessed examples of his technology, I began to believe that it might be possible for them to overcome the Goa'uld; technological development on most worlds under Goa'uld rule was actively suppressed to limit the possibility of the humans of that world becoming a threat, so the weapons and other technology possessed by O'Neill and his team were something I had never witnessed before. I thus aided O'Neill in rescuing Apophis's current prisoners, and subsequently joined the Tau'ri in their campaign to overthrow the Goa'uld, beginning the steps that would lead to the formation of the Free Jaffa Nation."

"You were the first one to tell those Goa'uld sods where they could stick it, huh?" Spike asked, smiling slightly at Teal'c. "Good on you, mate; what tipped you off he was a fake?"

"Many small events gathered together," Teal'c replied. "My main guide to this path was my teacher, Bra'tac, whom you met on Dakara; as I trained to become the First Prime of Apophis, he taught me that reliance on faith alone would not permit me to triumph in battle, and only by relying on my own senses and abilities could I hope to prevail. On one occasion I was asked to kill a comrade for retreating from a battle that he could not have won and display his symbiote to Apophis; having allowed him to escape, I presented a fake symbiote to Apophis, and he never realised that it was not the symbiote of the Jaffa whose death he had requested. With these and other thoughts in my mind, I left the service of Apophis and have since served with Stargate Command ever since, aiding my people as they sought their freedom from the Goa'uld."

"Nice job," Spike said, smiling in approval at the Jaffa before his expression became more neutral, a somewhat wistful expression on his face as he reflected on his own past. "Never took on anything that big before coming here myself, I have to admit; mostly Sunnyhell only really attracted the smaller groups wanting to open the Hellmouth."

"The Hellmouth?" Teal'c inquired, looking curiously at Spike as they turned to head down some nearby stairs to the next level down. "Would that be referring to the portal to Hell that Captain Finn mentioned was located below Sunnydale during my earlier meeting with him?"

"Bingo," Spike said, nodding in confirmation at Teal'c before he continued. "Anyway, as I said, we had some problems with various assorted demons trying to open the damn thing, but otherwise we never had to deal with a large-scale attack apart from when we were defending this island from a bunch of demon Nazis or that final fight against the First; everything was either small groups trying to open the Hellmouth that were fairly easy to stop once we knew what they were up to or just a bunch of random demons that wanted nothing more than to commit a few murders in the area or something like that."

"Indeed," Teal'c said, looking at Spike in a slightly curious manner before he continued. "If I might ask, what type of… opponents… did you confront before arriving at the SGC?"

"Oh, nothing major by what I've seen of your standards, really," Spike said casually. "We had a triad of demons who tried to open the Hellmouth by throwing _themselves _into it, some kind of brain-eating alien-ish thing- was never really sure if it was actually an _alien _or just a demon that liked coming from the sky; at the time everyone was more focused on killing it rather than quizzing it about its origins-, this demented robot created by some guy who wanted the perfect girlfriend and only decided after it had been built that the damn thing was _too _perfect- really obsessive about the guy and way too predictable, from what I gather-, a trio of nerds who fancied themselves the new big bads of the city when really only one of 'em was actually _evil_- the other two were mainly misguided loners-, that whole year-long thing with the First that Captain Cardboard told you about when I got here… oh, and there was this time when we ended up going up against this loony god who wanted to kill one of us as part of a ritual to get home…"

"You have encountered a true god?" Teal'c asked, looking over at Spike inquiringly.

"Well, she was totally barking mad and had lost a decent amount of her original power level when we encountered, but yeah, she was a god; got the info from a pretty reliable source," Spike confirmed as the two men continued walking, enjoying the slightly surprised look on Teal'c's face as he walked. "Called herself Glorificus- well, that was her _real _name; everyone just called her Glory for short-, and tended to spend her time sucking the mental energy out of people to keep herself something close to stable while looking for this Key thing that she was going to use to get herself back to her home dimension- while, naturally, not bothering about the fact that doing that would cause _this _reality to kind of… collapse, I think was the word used."

"How did you manage to prevent her from doing so?" the Jaffa inquired, a slight gleam in his eyes that Spike was fairly certain was excitement; evidently, after learning something about the kind of foes Spike had tackled on a regular basis before arriving at the SGC, the Jaffa was curious to learn how one managed to defeat a _real _god as opposed to the pretenders.

"Well, as I mentioned, she'd powered down a bit when she ended up stuck here- she ruled her world with two other gods and they teamed up to kick her into this one-, but she was still capable of taking pretty much anything we could throw at her as… well, herself," Spike explained, pausing briefly to glance through a nearby closed door, only to shake his head and retreat back out of it as he turned back to look at Teal'c. "Anyway, we eventually learned that she had been partly bonded to somebody else- some human dude called Ben; she basically turned into him at random moments, but this spell thing prevented anyone from actually remembering it until the spell began to break down- who tried to sell us out to get a life for himself, and, after we hit Glory with enough mystical and physical whammy, she powered down to Ben and we were able to…"

He paused for a moment, unwilling to specifically name Giles as the man who'd killed Ben- the man had needed to do it, but it hardly seemed fair to talk in detail about people behind their backs to people who'd likely never even meet them-, before he concluded his statement with, "Well, we finished the job."

"It was that simple?" Teal'c said, looking at Spike uncertainly. "I would have thought that a true god would require more than that to be defeated."

Spike shrugged.

"As I said, she'd apparently been powered down a bit when she got stuck here even without the whole thing where she was forced to turn into Ben; apparently she was meant to be one _seriously _big cheese back where she came from," he explained as he looked back at Teal'c. "It's like I heard from a friend of a friend somewhere along the line; anything that can actually manifest a body here kind of _has _to be killable to some degree or another, it just takes a bit of an effort to find out how they can do it."

"A good rule to be aware of," Teal'c replied, before he paused outside a door with a slight smile. "We have arrived."

"Arrived at what?" Spike asked, looking in confusion at the door in front of them.

"This is the door for the power generation chamber of the ship that we now stand in," Teal'c explained, looking over at Spike with a slight smile. "If you would not mind taking a look inside it, Spike?"

"Sure thing," Spike said simply, leaning through the door for a few seconds before he pulled back with a shrug. "Well, doesn't seem too bad in there, really; a bit dull, of course- all I can really see in there is some massive egg-thing that's not doing much of anything but sitting there and glowing at me."

"That is the central power core of this ship," Teal'c confirmed, nodding slightly at Spike before he looked curiously at the vampire. "Did the glow in question appear to… weaken… as you looked at it?"

"Just a mo…" Spike said, raising one hand before he turned around to lean through the door once again, this time remaining in that position for several seconds before he pulled his head back out. "Nope, still seems to be the same as ever."

"Thank you for clarifying that question, Spike," the Jaffa replied, smiling slightly at the currently intangible vampire before he activated his radio. "Colonel Carter, it would appear that the ships are not entirely dependent on the Priors for power; the central power core appears to remain at relatively full strength despite the length of time that has elapsed since the departure of Adria from this vessel."

"_Right_," Sam's voice said over the radio, "_Daniel and I'll see what we can find about the power source up here; you and Spike keep searching the ship for something else that we could use_."

"Understood," Teal'c said briefly, before he terminated the radio and looked up at Spike. "We shall proceed."

"Uh… and look for _what_, exactly?" Spike asked, looking at his new Jaffa friend in no slight degree of confusion. "I mean, I don't exactly mind the chance to check out new things, but what else could there _be _in here…?"

"Information on the tactical strategies of the Ori forces that would allow us to develop counter-attacks, examples of the weapons they traditionally use that would allow us to develop a means of negating their technological advantage in a hand-to-hand confrontation, and clothing that could be used to provide us with a disguise at some future date, amongst other things," Teal'c countered, his eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at Spike. "We are at war, Spike; even the slightest tactical advantage at this juncture could prove to be of crucial importance at present."

"Uh… point," Spike admitted, trying not to look as foolish as he was feeling right now; he was so used to thinking in terms of 'take out this week's bad guy and build up strength for the big finale at the end of it all' that he'd almost forgotten that the SGC didn't have that kind of luxury. In most cases, the villains he'd been up against had been gathering their strength for the final attack just as much as he and his allies had been gathering theirs; these guys, on the other hand, were pretty much fighting to keep up with these Ori buggers, who, from what Spike had gathered, were _already _operating from a position of power and weren't that eager to ditch it that easily.

If he was going to stay on this team, he was going to need to learn that he was dealing with some _very _different bad guys than what he was used to…

Before he and Teal'c could get much further along the corridor, however, the radio activated once again.

"Colonel Carter?" Teal'c said, raising the radio to his mouth as he looked curiously over at Spike. "Is something wrong?"

"_Teal'c, Spike_," Sam's voice said over the radio, sounding suddenly rushed, "_General Landry just called and asked for the two of you to get back to Earth as soon as possible. We have a situation; Vala's been abducted and they think that it might be the Trust_!"


	15. Inner and Outer Searches

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Just to mention in advance, this chapter, while not actually anti-Buffy/Spike, is also not in _favour _of it; I don't deny that they had some chemistry, but in the end I think any actual relationship between them would have been doomed if they'd ever tried to have one that was built on more than Buffy's need to feel alive after a traumatic experience. As a result, I felt that it was important to have Spike realise and acknowledge that before he can really settle in to his new life in SG-1. For those who feel Spike is moving on too fast compared to how long he held on to his feelings in _Angel_, it should be noted that, when he was in _Angel_, he and Angel were so used to competing with each other that it would almost be natural for him to fall into 'old habits' and start 'competing' with Angel about which of them had the most serious relationship with Buffy, thus preventing him from really moving on as he's trying to convince himself that he 'outdid' his grandsire in having a better relationship with Buffy even if he couldn't have the better relationship with Drusilla. At the SGC, by contrast, he has encountered little to remind him of Buffy and more to remind him of himself as a person and his assets to this new organisation, thus allowing him to acknowledge his relationship with Buffy as what it was and move on accordingly to become a new individual unfettered by the standards and beliefs that had previously been formed about him

The Ghost in the Team

"So," Spike said an hour later, as he stood in one corner of the briefing room while the remaining two Earthbound members of SG-1- Sam and Daniel had remained at Dakara to continue studying the Ori battlecruiser- sat around the table, "you're telling me that 'the Trust' is basically a group of berks who thought that the only way to beat these Goa'uld bastards was to nick every bit of advanced tech out there regardless of whether the owners wanted to part with it and then use weapons of mass destruction against them even if it took out people whose only crime was being forced to worship some loony aliens with delusions of godhood?"

"Basically, yeah," Mitchell confirmed, nodding slightly at Spike, still dressed in more casual clothes; from what he'd told them after they'd arrived, Vala had been abducted from a restaurant where the two of them had gone for dinner during their temporary time off (And why did that notion _bother _Spike as much as it was?).

"And, after you sods kicked those snake-like berks out of their empires, this 'Trust'- and that is a _really _dumb name, by the way; doesn't sound like they deserve it in my book- was taken over by them and ended up becoming the largest Goa'uld based organisation currently active?" Spike continued, looking incredulously at them. "How the hell does _that _happen?"

"It was the doing of the Trust themselves," Teal'c responded, glancing back at Spike with a shrug. "Having acquired a ship that possessed a hyperdrive, permitting them to travel to other worlds, they departed Earth with the intention of bombing Goa'uld-inhabited worlds with symbiote poison and destroying the Jaffa and Goa'uld on them, with the intention of eliminating the Goa'uld's armies and thus weakening them considerably. However, early on in this 'quest' of theirs, based on what information we have managed to acquire, the crew of the ship were captured, implanted with symbiotes, and were subsequently sent back to Earth to infiltrate the organisation with even more symbiotes."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding slightly in understanding; he had to admit, even if the story wasn't exactly encouraging- who liked to think about the possibility to being taken over by alien parasites who used your body like it was theirs?-, there _was _something about the idea of these guys getting used by the creatures they'd tried to kill that was at least somewhat amusing. "So, now that I've been filled in on the cast list… you think Vala got abducted by these guys because she's got something they want?"

"That's precisely what you're all here to find out," Landry said as he walked into the briefing room, looking around at the team as he spoke. "We've got Agent Barrett and his people already working on it- they work for the NID; it's the organisation that -, but I thought it would be best to get some extra assistance back here as soon as possible; if nothing else, if we want to try stealth tactics to get her back, right now Spike would appear to be the most logical choice."

"Uh… love to help, your Generalness, but have you forgotten that I'm a _vampire_?" Spike retorted, indicating his face as he assumed his vampiric visage for a moment. "Me and sunlight? Not _exactly _an award-winning combo, and last time I checked it's still pretty bright out there!"

"Uh… correct me if I've missed something here, but aren't you still intangible?" Mitchell pointed out, raising a hand slightly as he looked at Spike with a slightly amused smile despite the severity of their current plight. "I mean, how can the sun turn you to dust when you don't even have a body that can be damaged by it any more?"

For a moment Spike was prepared to respond to that comment with another cutting remark, but after a moment's pause, he sighed and shook his head in frustration.

"Point," he said simply.

"Thanks for admitting it," Mitchell replied with a brief smile before he turned back to look at Landry. "So, we got any targets yet?"

"Barrett's sent us a list of suspected Trust safehouses; I'm sending the three of you on a mission to one of the most likely," Landry responded as he looked around at the group before him. "You'll be joined by five other teams to cover all available entrances and exits to the building; Spike will be sent in first on a scouting mission to determine if it's worth sending in the rest, with Teal'c retaining possession of the amulet, and will alert us as soon as he has confirmed the presence of Trust agents at the scene."

"Uh, you _do _remember that I'll have to come back out to do that last bit, right?" Spike asked, looking uncertainly over at the general. "I mean, I can't exactly carry a radio around; even if I could be sure I could make my pockets solid enough to carrying it, it'd kind of make the stealth thing a bit tricky if I'd need to plan everything around having a radio in my pocket …"

"_Spike_," Landry interjected, gritting his teeth briefly before he regained control as he continued to stare at the intangible vampire, "you can either sneak into a warehouse that might hold your missing teamamte, scope out the opposition we'd be facing, get out and let us know, or you can wait in the base for them all to get back and tell you how things turned out. Your preference?"

"I'll sneak into the warehouse," Spike said simply.

"Good," Landry replied with a slight smile, before he turned to look at the other two members of SG-1 currently available to him. "You two are to lead one of the teams mounting the assault; I'll dispatch all available SG teams to make up the rest of the attack force, but you'll be leading the assault."

"Gotcha," Mitchell said, as he stood up, glancing over at Teal'c as he did so. "OK then, T.; grab that amulet and let's roll."

* * *

A couple of hours later, Spike, standing in the open sunlight without being in danger of imminent death for the first time in over a century- so what if the only reason it wasn't affecting him was that he didn't have a body any more; it was still pretty cool-, was standing outside the abandoned warehouse that the NID- he'd have to remember to ask what that actually _stood _for- believed Vala might have been taken to, Mitchell, Teal'c, and an armoured SUV-ful of SWAT-like soldiers accompanying them as they waited.

"So, you've got the situation, right?" Mitchell said, looking critically at Spike as he spoke. "You go in there, find Vala, let us know where she is, and then get us in. Don't- I repeat- _don't _try anything; you said yourself that you're still working on the whole 'maintaining-a-solid-form' aspect of your current intangibility status, and if you can't guarantee you'll stay solid long enough to take out the people in there fast enough they might just decide to cut their losses and kill Vala before we can get her out."

"Gotcha," Spike said, nodding in resignation at Mitchell. "Can't be sure I'll put them out fast enough, I shouldn't bother doing it."

"Exactly," Mitchell said, nodding in confirmation at the vampire before he jerked his head towards the door. "Go do your thing, buddy."

"Check," Spike said, giving Mitchell a brief mock salute before he turned back towards the wall in front of him and walked right through it, allowing himself only a slight smile as he entered the warehouse before him (Only to be slightly let down by the interior; after all he'd heard about these Trust buggers, he'd have expected to see at least _something _interesting inside their base the second he entered it, but the fanciest thing in the main warehouse was a silver car parked near some large metal and wooden boxes).

He'd never have admitted to it, of course- the thought made him sound a bit pathetic, in his opinion-, but he'd actually rather liked it when Mitchell had called him 'buddy' just then.

He may have spent almost four years fighting alongside Buffy's team back in Sunnydale against every kind of demon-related threat that town had to offer, but he'd never really felt like he fitted in with them; if he wasn't helping them tackle the latest demon or whatever other crisis was stalking Sunnydale at the time, he'd generally stayed away from the group and they generally hadn't gone looking for his company (The fact that nobody had asked _him _about his opinion regarding the attempt to resurrect Buffy was proof enough of that, as far as he was concerned). Even when he'd briefly spent some time living with the future one-eyed carpenter after he'd come back from that demonic shaman, the only time the two of them had actually spent together apart from when they'd just happened to end up in the apartment at the same time was when they'd been trying to figure out what was up with that R.J. berk, and even that was only because everyone else in the group was too busy fawning over the quarterback inquestion to be any help; if Rupert had still been around, Spike had little doubt that Harris would have asked him for help and left Spike as out of the loop as he could manage to leave his roommate.

He'd never really complained about it at the time, of course- even if he'd had Drusilla for company for most of his time as a vampire, there'd still been a few occasions over the century or so they'd been together when they'd spent some time apart to stop themselves getting bored with each other and he'd always been fine on his own; being a bit outside of the group wasn't the worst position he'd ever been in-, but the fact of the matter was that, back in Sunnydale, after the chip got stuck in his head, his only real 'friends' in the group were Buffy and Dawn, and Dawn was more of a little sister than anything while Buffy…

To say their relationship had been complicated would be like saying Captain Forehead brooded a lot; it just didn't do the situation justice. Spike had loved her with or without a soul, naturally, but he'd just never been sure where Buffy had stood as far as those kind of feelings went. Even during their 'affair' (For lack of a better term) last year, a part of him had always acknowledged that it hadn't quite been what he'd wanted from her, but at the same time he'd been so desperate for _any _kind of connection with her by that point that he'd at least partly deluded himself (Something he would only _ever _admit to himself; he hated looking like an idiot) into thinking that it was based on something more than Buffy's need to just feel like she was still part of the world after all that mess around her resurrection.

In the end, he had to face facts; getting his soul may have brought them closer together, but he still hadn't been the person she _loved_, he'd just been the person she confided in. He'd spent so long waiting for her to 'realise' that she cared for him as more than a friend and ally that, towards, the end, he'd begun to read more in her actions than had actually been there, such as when she'd allowed him to comfort her after the rest of the team kicked her out of the house and put Faith in charge (Nothing _sexual _had happened, of course, but there'd been the potential nevertheless).

It had only been at the very end, when he'd looked her in the eyes as she said 'I love you' while he was burning up with that damn amulet around his neck sending the sunlight out to all the other Turok-Han bastards in the area, that he'd finally realised it.

She loved him as a friend; yes.

She loved him as an ally; absolutely.

She loved him as a lover…

Not so much…

And Spike had gotten so far off topic he couldn't believe it; he could _not _keep thinking about Buffy in this situation!

The point behind what he'd been thinking earlier was a simple one; in the end, no matter what he'd done for them since he got that chip stuck in his head, even after getting his soul back, Buffy and Dawn were the only members of the Scoobies who'd ever _really _accepted him, and in Buffy's case she still hadn't quite accepted him the way he _wanted _her to.

Here at the SGC, however?

Everyone he'd talked with on a long-term basis so far at least knew the basics of what he'd done before joining them, and nobody was letting it affect their judgement of him. Daniel had spent some of their rare free moments on the _Odyssey _asking Spike about some of the historical locations he'd visited during the previous century or his knowledge about demon history- just because he didn't pay much attention to the occult aspects of his vampirism didn't mean he didn't acknowledge they were there-, Sam had occasionally joined Daniel in asking him about some of the higher and lower dimensions that he'd encountered in his life- still at least partly trying to 'science-ify' his existence, as Spike thought of her attempts to find more rational explanations for the existence of demons than just 'magic'-, he'd shared a few personal stories about his past fights with Mitchell, Teal'c and Vala on other occasions, and the Jaffa had already offered to teach him how to 'Kel-no-reem', or something like that, to help him improve his ability to touch stuff.

None of them _had _to do any of that, but they'd done it anyway… just because they wanted to.

Spike would have denied it under torture, of course- after that whole mess with Dru ditching him for the sodding chaos demon, he'd promised himself he'd never become that focused on anybody again-, but he had to admit, he actually rather liked it.

Feeling like he actually _belonged _somewhere… somewhere where his past didn't leave everybody looking at him as though he was about to go psycho and start attacking them if he felt like it… somewhere he was accepted as part of the group rather than just being taken in because some people thought it wouldn't be right to stake somebody who couldn't fight back…

Well, it was a nice feeling, really.

_Plus, of course_, Spike reflected to himself as he walked through another of the boxes in the warehouse, _it's nice to be able to provide something to the team that _nobody _else can do_.

It might not be a natural ability of his, but at least the intangibility thing meant that he wasn't being used as just the extra muscle any more; he may have had the experience edge over her, but the fact remained that the group back in Sunnydale had always primarily relied on Buffy on the supernatural strength front when the time came for a fight, and only looked to him for help when she was otherwise occupied with something else.

Here, he was his own man bringing his own skills to the party- odd ones, to be sure but pretty cool nevertheless; how many people had he encountered who could just walk through walls like this?- and he was loving every last _minute _of it.

Then he stuck his head through another wall, only to find nothing once again, and his initially optimistic mood began to fade.

Right now he'd gone through almost half the warehouse, and he _still _hadn't managed to find Vala; he was starting to think that _nobody _was here right now.

He wasn't sure what was more frustrating; that Vala was still in trouble after he'd had to walk through all this crap for nothing- it was _really _weird, seeing all that wood and metal from the _inside_-, or that he'd come out into the sunlight for the first time in over a hundred and twenty years without getting burned- not counting his brief time with the Gem of Amara, of course- only to accomplish nothing significant as a result of it.

_Well, maybe not _nothing_…_ Spike admitted to himself, as he turned to head down one last corridor before he officially gave up the current search effort as a waste of time and returned to the rest of his new team. _After all, I _did _have the chance to think about stuff a bit_…

It was still early days, of course, but so far, if things kept up the way they'd been keeping up so far, he had a feeling he was actually going to like this new job a _lot _better than he'd liked his old one…

* * *

A couple of hours later, as he once again stood in the SGC, however, Spike re-evaluated his earlier assessment; that whole situation _had _been pointless.

"You're telling me that she was in one of the _other _ones, and she actually sodding _ran off _while I was busy haunting an empty warehouse?" he yelled, staring in frustration at Landry as he sat at the top of the table, unconcerned about protocol at a time like this (Besides, he wasn't an official member of the military, even if he was currently working in a military base; what were they going to do, apart from confine him to the facility?).

"Spike, in all fairness, we _are _only human; there was no way for us to predict _which _of the safehouses she would be taken to," Landry countered, looking at the vampire in slight frustration before he turned back to address Mitchell and Teal'c as well; Sam and Daniel were still busy analysing the Ori battlecruiser, and nobody felt like interrupting them to ask for help in something where none of their skills would be of any immediate benefit. "Anyway, SG-15 and three of the local team were lost during the assault, and we've only managed to interrogate one Trust operative with minor injuries. He confirmed that the facility was designed to explode in the event that it was ever stormed, and also that Vala Mal Doran was held there."

"Did they move her before the raid?" Mitchell asked.

"Unlikely; they wouldn't have had the time," Landry replied, shaking his head. "Besides, our new guest claims that he saw Miss Mal Doran making a run for it before he lost consciousness, which at least suggests that she managed to get out prior to the destruction of the holding facility."

"If that were the case, why has she not yet attempted to contact us?" Teal'c asked, looking inquiringly at the general.

"That's one of the things we're hoping the interrogation will reveal; at the moment, we're practically running into a brick wall on that front," Landry replied, before he turned to look at Spike with a slight smile. "Actually, I was wondering if you'd be willing to help in the… questioning, shall we say?"

Spike blinked.

"Hold on; you're giving _me_ the chance to interrogate this berk?" he said, looking at Landry in confusion. "Isn't there some whole 'Geneva Convention' thing that stops you sods condoning deliberate harm to prisoners?"

"I'm not actually suggesting you hurt him for _real_, Spike; I'm just suggesting that you… make him _think _that you will," Landry clarified, smiling slightly as he looked at the vampire. "After all, he might know about aliens, but I'm betting that he won't know about vampires; so long as you don't give away the fact that you can't actually _touch _him, it might be enough."

For a moment Spike simply stood in silence as he looked thoughtfully at the man before him, before he smiled and nodded.

"So, in other words, I have carte blanche- or whatever the term is- to freak this guy out, so long as I don't actually do any long-term damage?" he asked.

"Precisely," Landry replied, nodding in confirmation at the vampire.

"You know something, your generalness?" Spike said, grinning as he looked back at Landry. "You're my kind of boss."

"Thanks… I think," Landry replied, before he stood up and indicated the door. "Anyway, let's get moving; we've got one lead and we need to get answers out of him before the trail gets cold."

* * *

A few minutes later, Spike, Mitchell and Teal'c were standing in the interrogation room, glaring at the sole surviving member of the Trust who had been present at the warehouse holding Vala. The man in question- whose name, Spike had gathered, was 'Weaver'- was relatively young, maybe between mid-twenties and mid-thirties- after spending so long among vampires Spike had stopped judging people's ages by their physical appearances due to how rarely that information could help with the people he regularly spent his time with-, dressed in a pale blue shirt with the top couple of buttons undone, giving him an unusually relaxed attitude. Given the kind of professionalism Spike assumed an agency like what he'd heard about these 'Trust' buggers would demand, he was prepared to bet that this guy served as the interrogator or something like that; the tie thing was probably meant to give the impression that he was a relaxed guy who people might feel a bit more comfortable talking to…

(Or something like that, anyway; Spike wasn't any kind of psychology expert, and right now all he really wanted to do was get this bastard to start singing like the proverbial canary.)

"So, any chance you'll make this easy on us and tell us what you actually _wanted _with her?" Mitchell asked, his arms folded as he stared resolutely at Weaver.

"Look," Weaver replied in an exasperated tone, "I already told you… _I can't say_! Even if I wanted to help you, right now I'm more concerned for my well-being…"

"We can protect you," Mitchell said.

"No you can't!" Weaver protested.

Exchanging a brief glance with Teal'c, Mitchell smiled slightly and stood up.

"OK," he said brightly, before looking over at Spike. "He's all yours."

With that, he and Teal'c turned around and walked towards the door, leaving Spike standing alone in front of the interrogation table as he glared at the man before him.

"Uh… where are you going?" Weaver asked, looking in confusion at the two departing men.

"Oh, we'll be in the hall; just yell _really _loudly if you need us," Mitchell replied casually, shortly before the door slid shut behind him and Teal'c, leaving Spike alone as he faced Weaver, who gazed at him with a mixture of curiosity and contempt.

"Who are you, anyway?" he asked.

"Who am I?" Spike replied, smirking slightly as he leaned forward, taking care not to unfold his arms; if he tried leaning against the table and fell through it, it wouldn't _really _help the image he was trying to create. "I'm the guy who has ways of making you talk?"

"Such as?" Weaver countered, looking scathingly at Spike. "I'm sorry, but did they think I'd be more intimidated by a man in a leather coat than by the hundred-year-old Jaffa warrior? I'm prepared for all of their little interrogation tricks-"

"I'm a hundred and twenty at least," Spike interjected.

Weaver blinked.

"What?" he repeated, staring back at Spike in confusion.

"I'm a hundred and twenty years old," Spike repeated, leaning forward so that he was practically eye-to-eye with Weaver. "I've lived through both World Wars, seen some of the minor ones, and been to some _very _interesting places. Trust me; you think what Teal'c could do to you is bad? I can do things that would make _him _wince."

For a moment, Weaver almost looked panicked, but then he stopped and shook his head with a slight smile.

"You really expect me to believe that?" he asked Spike, the smile growing all the more as he looked at the man before him. "Just because you _say _you're-"

Spike assumed his vamp face.

"OH MY GOD!"

* * *

A few minutes later, Spike casually strolled out of the interrogation room, mockingly dusting his hands off as he looked over at Mitchell and Teal'c.

"Well, that was amusing," he said, before his expression became more quizzical. "Do you two have any idea when some Goa'uld called Athena would want something called the Clava Thessara Infinitas?"


	16. Spike and Sheppard

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

Two weeks later, Spike was standing dejectedly in the SGC exercise room, casually poking at a few weights that Mitchell had left on a nearby bench as he tried to get them to roll off onto the floor. It wasn't the most productive way to spend his time, of course, but given the general lack of progress that had been made as far as the search for Vala went since she'd vanished, it seemed like the only thing he really _could _do.

OK, there'd been the occasional mission since Vala had been lost- the SGC couldn't exactly stop all operations for one missing person, after all, no matter if she was one of the few aliens on staff-, but even then they'd just been simple survey missions to some of the currently unexplored worlds in the Stargate network; after losing one of their battlecruisers and with the Tau'ri/Jaffa alliance now stronger than it had been for a while, the Ori seemed to have decided to back off a bit and rethink their original strategies. Without any immediate threat, SG-1 had generally been put on stand-down until something else came up, with most of them taking advantage of the time-out to work on projects they'd been unable to get around to earlier.

Spike had been given the opportunity to work with another team, given that he wasn't an official member of SG-1 yet and could use the experience, but he'd refused; a six-man team might be a bit big, but he'd grown to like the rest of the group after all the time he'd spent with them after he'd 'woken up', and he wasn't in the mood for _another _radical upheaval in his life when he was still trying to get his head around being a 'sodding weird ghost' (He refused to think of himself as an actual ghost; he wasn't _dead_, he was just currently corporeally-challenged).

As he'd put it, he'd been accepted by SG-1 as one of their own- still a probationary 'one of their own', of course, but they were still willing to let him work with them when so few people apparently managed to pull that off-, and he was going to stick to that team for as long as he wanted to.

Besides, on some level he kind of liked the fact that he actually found a lot of similarities between them and the Scoobies (Not, of course, that he would ever admit it to anyone; he had a rep to keep up even if he was starting over again here); Sam was the computer-hacking witch without the lesbianism and with science rather than magic as her focus, Daniel was the younger Giles with a bit more of an action focus, Cam was kinda like a Xander/Captain Cardboard amalgamation (With the obvious exception that he actually _liked _this guy, although he freely admitted that that was probably because Cam didn't treat him like he was going to go psycho at a moment's notice), Teal'c reminded him a bit of himself and Peaches- both former 'bad guys' who turned against their old 'bosses'-, and as for Vala-

Spike stopped himself from going there; it was still _way _too soon to allow his thoughts to go there with things being the way they were right now!

Still… he couldn't _honestly_ deny that there _was _something about his new (Albeit currently missing) teammate that had managed to capture his interest ever since he showed up here (And for those who'd known him in the past, it _wasn't _just the fact that the dark hair made her look a bit like Dru; he'd moved beyond _that_ period of his life a _hell _of a long time ago).

Maybe it was the fact that she was kind of like him, albeit in a more roundabout way; from what he'd gathered about the Goa'uld, having one in you was kind of similar to being controlled by a vampire demon, except for the fact that as the host to a Goa'uld you apparently knew what was going on around you and couldn't do anything about it while as a vampire the original you didn't know what you were doing.

Plus, of course, there was the fact that, from what he'd gathered, she definitely _didn't _act like her Goa'uld self while he was still pretty much the same person he'd been before the demonic shaman had stuck his soul back into his body; he hadn't been expecting the soul thing, but even if he had he'd never have really expected himself to be _this _unaffected by having his back, particularly after seeing Peaches in his 'before and after' stages. He'd asked Giles and Willow for their opinions on that particular issue once, and the best theory they'd been able to offer was that, when the shaman had stuck his soul back, he'd _merged _it with Spike's demon rather than having it overshadow the demon like Angel's soul overshadowed Angelus…

And he was getting off-topic; the net result was that, even if there were some differences between him and Vala, she was still rather like him, in that she, like him, was trying to make up for stuff she'd done in her past by working with the SGC, even if she hadn't exactly been the guilty party responsible for what she was trying to atone for. He'd grown to kind of like her while she was part of the team, and right now he found himself wishing she was there again; he really wouldn't have minded getting the chance to talk to her a bit more, maybe find out a bit more about what it was _really _like out there…

He just wished that Daniel had managed to figure out more about that so-called 'Ancient treasure' that Vala had apparently been abducted to provide the location of; maybe if they'd known where what that screwy Goa'uld chick was looking for actually was, they might be able to track her down and see if they could get her help in finding where Vala actually _was _these days.

As it was, however, Vala was missing, the rest of SG-1 were occupied with their own projects, and all that Spike had to keep himself occupied while he waited for the quiet spell they were dealing with at the moment to end was work on his ability to touch stuff for longer than just to deliver the occasional punch. Teal'c had given him a few lessons in that 'kel-no-reem' thing to try and help him improve h is focus, but so far he wasn't having much luck.

"Everything OK?" a voice said from off to the side. Glancing over, Spike smiled slightly as he saw Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard walk into the room, looking curiously at the intangible vampire as he poked sullenly at some of the weights laid out before him.

"Oh, y'know, just a bit tired of being stuck here for so long; you know how it is," Spike replied casually, indicating a nearby chair where the new arrival could sit down if he wanted while he continued to stare intently at the object before him. "How about you?"

"Still trying to find possible candidates for the new team," Sheppard replied, sitting down sullenly on the bench beside Spike. "You never think you're going to _miss _somebody complaining until they actually leave you…"

"Tell me about it," Spike replied, smiling slightly at the former military commander of Atlantis (He still couldn't believe Atlantis was actually an _alien _city on another planet; so much for any theories that it was mystical in origin).

About a couple of days after Vala had gone missing, the SGC had announced the creation of the McKay-Carter Inter-Galactic Bridge, a vast 'bridge' of thirty-four Stargates taken from a multitude of different uninhabited planets from two galaxies- that part _never _failed to impress Spike; Earth had actually managed to send a bunch of people to another _galaxy_?- and subsequently 'laid out' between the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies (He _thought _that was the name, at least), thus enabling quick and easy transport between any point in the aforementioned galaxies in a matter of minutes (So long as you had this small spaceship thing to travel through them; they still hadn't apparently finished the space station where the two ends of the 'bridge' met to make it safe for people to go through).

Unfortunately, as a result the expedition had discovered and 'woken up' some lost Ancients- the people who'd actually _made _Atlantis, based on what Spike remembered of his 'briefing' when he joined the SGC- who'd been stuck in some kind of slowed-time effect due to them moving at a fraction below the speed of light (The physics of it went over Spike's head; he thought he'd gathered that they'd been moving at a rate that meant that time had technically slowed down for them while moving normally for everyone else). The Ancients had been grateful enough for the save at the time, of course, but once they got to Atlantis, they'd just taken over the city and 'asked' every single human in the place to leave the city on the grounds that it was _theirs_.

Personally, Spike thought the SGC should have just told those Ancient sods where to stick it- there was like only a sodding hundred of them left and they'd been away for ten thousand years; did they really have the _right _to just march in and take over like that as though Earth hadn't gotten anywhere since their time?-, but the expedition members had been forced to move out nevertheless, with only that General O'Neill guy he'd met earlier- accompanied by the Woolsey prick, of course; Spike wondered how _that _guy was coping over there-, being allowed to hang around as liaisons between the Ancients and Earth. With nowhere else to go, most of the expedition's military force had taken up jobs at the SGC, with Colonel Sheppard in particular forming a bond with the members of SG-1 as they tried to help him adapt to his new life back on Earth, while the scientists were mostly shipped off to Area 51- Spike still couldn't believe that the theories about that place were all true; what _else _were the government covering up by publishing accurate whacko stories about it?- or sent off to whatever research project they wanted. Surprisingly enough, Spike had actually come to find that he particularly enjoyed spending time with the guy; he generally attributed it to the fact that, like him, John was the new guy at the SGC while still having a great deal of experience at dealing with stuff that most people didn't encounter normally.

OK, so John's experience was still related to the Stargate- albeit some slightly different Stargates; apparently the ones in the Pegasus Galaxy were a bit different from what they had here- while Spike's had been totally independent of the thing before coming here; from what Spike had heard about the Wraith, they weren't _exactly _like these 'Ori' buggers the Earth-based Stargate program had to deal with at the moment, so the fact remained that John was still getting used to changes in what he normally went up against. Heck, if Spike had the opportunity and still had his body- and if Earth's lot hadn't been booted out of that galaxy like they were a bunch of kids who'd been caught in their parents' bedroom after they got back from a night out, of course-, he might have asked if he could go on a mission at that end of the universe to see if the Wraiths' life-sucking abilities could have any effect on him give his technically-deceased status; it might have been interesting to pit Earth vampires against their apparent alien equivalent.

"So, what went wrong with the new guys this time around?" he asked, smiling slightly at his new friend; he knew that he _shouldn't _find it amusing, but somehow hearing about the various problem John had with his new team always managed to make him smile.

"In a nutshell?" John replied, looking over at Spike with a slight smile that nevertheless made it clear that he wasn't amused. "My scientist fell and broke his leg while examining some interesting-looking ruins and Captain Brooks- my second-in-command- nearly collapsed when it turned out he was allergic to something on that planet; some kind of bizarre rare plant's found there that doesn't seem to grow many places in the galaxy, apparently."

Spike blinked in shock

"Hold on; you lost one of your team to an _allergy_?" he said, looking over at John with a broad smile. "You're kidding me!"

"Wish I was; it'd at least actually be _funny _then," John replied, shrugging slightly as he sat back in his chair while looking at Spike. "How about you? Any progress with the touching thing?"

"Not yet; still can't make it last longer than a few secs," Spike replied, indicating a couple of dents in the floor where he'd dropped weights after losing his focus. "It _really_ wasn't this hard when I was knocking Adria out…"

"Yeah, I've been meaning to ask; why would it be _easier _for you to focus in that kind of situation?" John asked, looking curiously at his new friend. Although he'd bonded with all of SG-1's members since he'd returned to Earth, he actually found it rather refreshing to have a chance to talk to a guy who, in his own way, was just as much the 'outsider' to this place as he was, even if it was because he was new rather than because he was used to working in a different part of the universe. "I would have thought that you'd find it _harder _to concentrate in that kind of situation, but it sounds like it was just the opposite…"

"Best guess is it was because I was thinking more about how much I wanted to just _hurt _her; probably gave me a bit more focus," Spike replied, shrugging uncertainly as he looked back at John. "Y'know, when I'm doing this with inanimate objects I'm trying to think about a hell of a lot of other stuff, but when I'm up against somebody who I _know _is about to blow up a planet…"

"All you need to do is focus on the fact that you don't _want _her to blow up the planet, right?" John asked, looking at Spike for clarification.

"Bingo," Spike replied, nodding briefly in confirmation. "Still working on getting it right when I _don't _have something like that to provoke me; really _sucks_, quite frankly."

"I'll bet," John replied, sighing slightly as he stared up at the ceiling. "Still, at least you know you can do it; we spent our first year in Atlantis without anything like the power supply we'd need to defend ourselves if things got ugly, and then-"

A knocking sound from off to one side broke off the conversation, prompting the two men to look up and see Sergeant Harriman standing at the door.

"Sorry to interrupt, but SG-1 are wanted in the briefing room," he said, looking apologetically between Spike and Colonel Sheppard. "We think we've managed to find Vala-"

"I'm there," Spike said, standing up and looking apologetically over at John. "Sorry, but-"

"Gotcha; duty calls," John replied, nodding at Spike with a slight smile. That was part of the reason so many of SG-1 liked hanging out with John, really; as the former head of the Atlantis military himself, he understood how difficult it could be for them to find time to socialise with people during work hours. "See you later?"

"'Course," Spike replied, nodding briefly at his friend before he turned around and walked through the wall to look at Harriman as the sergeant stepped back from the door to look at him in only slight surprise; the SGC staff had generally managed to come to terms with Spike's habit of not using doors in his condition, but it still unnerved them slightly whenever he did it. "So, where to?"

"Oh… you're joining the rest of SG-1 up top; we've received a police report of a waitress involved in a robbery who matches Vala's description and wasn't able to provide a name, so General Landry ordered that SG-1 be dispatched to retrieve her," Harriman replied, looking uncertainly at the intangible vampire as something occurred to him. "Uh… where's your amulet?"

"Oh, no worries; last time I checked, it's either with Sam or Danny depending on whose turn it is to take a crack," Spike smiled, shrugging casually at the man who dialled the Stargate- you had to admire the guy, really; from what Spike had heard dialling the Stargate without the 'DHD' things he'd seen on other planets was a lot harder than you'd expect-, before he turned his attention back to the corridors before him. "Anyway, let's go… uh, just what I have on will be fine, right?"

"SG-1 are strictly going in as civilians; you'll be fine as you are," Harriman assured him, unable to stop a slight smile from crossing his face at the private joke; as Spike gradually became a more permanent member of SG-1, the team had taken to joking about his inability to wear BDUs or change clothes due to his intangible status, although in general the dark leather jacket worked for camouflage purposes on most of the planets they visited these days.

* * *

AN: Sorry about the quality of this; it's mostly a filler to establish the presence of the Atlantis expedition here during the events of "The Return", which took place around a week ago. Given my timeline for this story, I needed to account for the _Odyssey_'s possession of a ZPM as soon as possible, so I decided to have the expedition arrive during this two-week 'jump' that occurred during 'Memento Mori' as I wasn't entirely sure how to explore the SGC's reaction to it; we return to the events of 'Mori' as a whole next chapter


	17. A Trip to the Station

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

"OK," Spike said a short while later, the four full-time and one probationary members of SG-1 sitting inside a comfortable SUV- Mitchell and Teal'c were in the front seats while Sam, Daniel and Spike were in the back, Daniel and Mitchell in casual leather jackets and T-shirts while Teal'c wore a long-sleeved maroon T-shirt and Sam a more professional-looking jacket and blouse-, "just out of curiosity, anyone care to fill me in on why Vala might have _not _contacted us before now?"

"Well," Daniel said, looking over at Spike as Mitchell continued driving, "since the report we received states that Vala doesn't even remember her real name, it seems likely that the memory recall device's attempts to force Vala to remember what Qetesh knew about the Clava Thessara Infinitas resulted in the mental blocks Vala had placed on her memory to protect herself form the more traumatising parts of her time as a host breaking down completely-"

"Sorry, mental blocks?" Spike repeated, raising a surprised eyebrow.

"Putting aside the fact that the human mind simply isn't designed to cope with immortality- meaning that Vala's mind would be building up far more memories than it could ever have been intended to cope with while Qetesh was in control of her body-, you also need to take into account that, as a host, Vala would have been regularly exposed to the narcotic effects of a sarcophagus- a Goa'uld healing device they used to keep their bodies in good condition-, as well as being forced to commit multiple actions that she herself would never have done," Sam said, taking up the story from Daniel. "After Qetesh was extracted, she would have been forced to suppress at least _some _of her memories of that time in order to cope on a daily basis; Athena's attempts to break down those blocks to learn what she knew about the Clava Thessara Infinitas must have caused Vala to suffer from a total memory loss due to her own inability to cope with the restored memories."

"Right…" Spike said, nodding thoughtfully as he turned over what Sam had said in his head. "So… it's like her mind stuck a bunch of memories from when she had this 'Goa'uld' thing in her head behind a… a mental dam, right?… and when this 'Athena' bird broke it trying to find out about that dumb treasure, the old stuff got out and… basically washed everything away?"

"A crude but effective analogy, Spike," Teal'c confirmed from his position in the front of the SUV.

"Ah, so it's nothing more than amnesia, huh?" Spike said, shaking his head with a slightly wistful smile as he leant back in his chair as far as he dared; as always since he'd come out of the amulet, he couldn't lean too far back in case he passed the point here his body would automatically made him solid enough to use the chair (Plus, he _really _didn't want to have to force the SGC to have to come up with an explanation how a guy could fall out of a sealed car and have a bunch of other cars pass _through _him… and that was _just _because he didn't want them to get sick of him hanging around and try to call an exorcist). "Well, at least she gave herself a decent name; I still can't believe I ended up with _Randy_…"

"Pardon?" Mitchell asked, a slight smile on his face as he briefly glanced back at Spike before he returned his attention to the road before him. "What's that about you calling yourself 'Randy'?"

"Uh… it's… well, a memory spell went wrong once when I was back in Sunnydale- left everyone in my old group with no memory of who they or anyone else were-, and I… ended up thinking my name was… Randy Giles…" Spike said, trying to look anywhere but at his teammates as they looked at him in increased amusement; even Teal'c seemed to have a slight grin on his face.

In any other situation, Spike would have tried to avoid the subject he'd just unintentionally brought up; he still hadn't quite gotten out of the habit of dropping references to events in his past because the people he was with either already knew about them or wouldn't be interested in hearing more about the bits they didn't know

As it was, with those IOA berks probably looking for _any_ excuse to try and get him off the team- despite him passing his interview, he got the definite impression around the SGC that those Oversight pricks didn't trust ANYONE who wasn't 'normal'; they didn't even seem to like _Teal'c _much, and from what he'd gathered the guy's race were pretty much human apart from some genetic tweaks some time in the past-, he felt that it was only appropriate for him to be honest with the team if he _did _happen to bring up something from his past.

All he had to do was make sure he didn't let slip anything _too _embarrassing and he was confident that he could cope with his new 'rule'…

Which, of course, made it all the more annoying when he slipped up like he had just now, particularly when it was about something as embarrassing as that whole 'Randy' incident…

"So you lost your memory and thought your name was _Randy_?" Sam said, one hand over her mouth as she chuckled around it. "How did you get a name like _that_?"

"Look, I'd been wearing another outfit to try and hide from these loony loan sharks that were after me after a big loss at poker and it had 'Randy' on a nametag; what _else _was I meant to think when I woke up… memory-less and with nobody _else _who knew who I was?" Spike countered, already wishing he'd watched his mouth; the situation had been embarrassing enough after they'd all remembered the truth, and he hadn't even had his _soul_ back then (For all that he'd been more human than most vampires even _before _that shaman gave him his soul back, the demon still didn't… _feel _things as passionately as the soul did, which meant, among other things, that he felt more embarrassed about that incident _now _than he'd felt when it had actually happened)! "What is so sodding _funny _about that?"

"Just the thought of you standing around being referred to as _Randy _before you remembered who you were…" Mitchell replied, chuckling slightly before he turned back to the road before him and blinked. "Hold on; we're there."

_Finally_! Spike thought to himself as the SUV pulled up outside the police station- he had _never _thought that he'd be glad to be here, particularly given that the last time he'd been anywhere near even a single cop was when he was trying to stop Buffy turning herself in for something that she actually hadn't done-, parking outside the main entrance as the team quickly got out of the car. Initially, Spike's only main concern was to avoid going through anything as he followed Daniel- this was his first time out in public since he'd turned intangible and he didn't want to blow his friends' cover by walking through stuff- but no sooner were the SUV doors shut than he froze as a sudden thought occurred to him.

Without even realising it, he'd just thought of the rest of SG-1 as his _friends_…

He'd realised already that they were closer to him than he'd ever been to the gang back in Sunnydale- out of all of them, only Buffy and Dawn had really even come close to actually accepting him, and even then neither of them had ever actually been his 'friends'; Dawn was the little sister he'd never had and Buffy was… complicated to say the least-, but that was the first occasion where he really thought of the people he was currently with as being his _friends_.

_Friends_… Spike mused to himself, looking thoughtfully around at the group who'd taken him in as one of their own even with his unexpected arrival and the fact that he'd pretty much uprooted everything they thought they knew about the world just by being there (Accepting that magic was real after you'd spent the last decade or so confronting aliens _had _to be a bit of a leap, no matter how you looked at it, but they'd managed well enough).

As the rest of SG-1 began to walk towards the main entrance before them, Spike couldn't help but smile slightly.

He had friends…

He'd have denied it under torture- assuming he _could _be tortured in this state, of course; if he could touch stuff under the right conditions maybe it was possible that some stuff could also touch _him_?- but he really kind of liked the sound of that.

As they wandered into the police station- another thing Spike couldn't quite get used to about his new condition; he was walking in _sunlight _without feeling any ill effects-, Spike stuck his hands in his pockets and casually looked around himself, trying to take in the area around him as much as possible without making it obvious; given his currently intangible status he had to take care not to walk through anything, which obviously meant making sure he knew where everything was. Walking just a few inches behind Teal'c for increased safety- the big guy was so big that he practically guaranteed that nobody would get near enough to Spike to realise what he was; it was like standing behind a snowplough for people-, the rest of SG-1 soon entered what looked to Spike like the main room of the station. As they walked into the room, Sam took the lead, the rest of the team following her towards a dark-skinned man standing near a water-cooler, dressed in a light orange jacket over a greenish-grey shirt, a gold chain just visible under the shirt (The thought of whether or not it was a crucifix prompted another question from Spike; did religious artefacts still affect him even if he didn't have a body?)

"Detective Ryan?" Sam asked, walking up towards him, flashing her ID at him as he turned in acknowledgement of her query. "Hi; I'm Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, United States Air Force. We're here for the Jane Doe you've been holding."

"Uh…" Ryan said, looking at her in confusion as he studied the small group before him- Spike wondered if he was part of the problem there; of all of them, he _definitely _didn't look like he was a member of the military-, "_another_ Colonel Carter just picked her up."

"When?" Spike asked, stepping forward to glare incredulously at the detective, ignoring the warning looks Daniel and Mitchell were shooting in his direction; with Vala in danger, he wasn't in the _mood _for 'observing protocol' when the SG-1 members were the only people there who'd really know about his current status (And why was he so concerned about the ex-thief in particular?).

"Uh… about a minute ago," the detective replied, looking uncertainly back at the intangible vampire. "There were two of 'em; you must've passed them on your way in here. Black sedan, government plates."

A glance at the rest of SG-1 was all that Spike needed to confirm what he already thought; his new friends _hadn't _known about another car being sent to pick up Vala.

In other words…

_Great_, Spike groaned mentally, as he and the others turned to head back out towards the door (Spike once again 'falling into place' behind Teal'c to limit the chances of his true nature being discovered). _Why can I _never _escape the renegade government loonies_?

He vaguely registered the guy they'd spoken to yelling something about the freeway after them as they ran, but he couldn't spend the time being concerned about that right now; all he really cared about was finding the berks who'd taken Vala (And he would _really _need to think about why that was such a big deal for him later).

As SG-1 hurried out into the parking-lot, Spike was only slightly surprised to see a patrol car positioned in front of the area where SG-1 had parked their car only moments ago; given the resources that these 'Trust' buggers seemed to have available, setting up a little thing like a car being parked in an inconvenient place was hardly that challenging.

"We need you to move that car!" Sam yelled at one of the nearby officers, waving her ID in his face only to meet with

Before Spike could even suggest he try and 'vamp out' to encourage the officers to move- and _God_, he was changing from his time with these guys; time was he would have just vamped out regardless of what other people would have felt if he had this kind of crap to deal with-, Mitchell had pulled out an ID, hurried around the car, and ran up to stand in front of a guy who looked like he was just about to get onto a motorbike.

"I'm commandeering your bike," he told the man, grabbing the man's helmet from where it lay on the seat. "Get off."

Fortunately, the guy only needed a brief glance at Mitchell's ID before he agreed to the request (With Vala's captors taking her further and further away they really didn't have time to argue about stuff like this), stepping back and tossing the keys to Mitchell, who deftly caught them in one hand even as he pulled his helmet on with the other.

"Mitchell!" Daniel yelled as Mitchell leapt onto the bike, prompting the lieutenant colonel to briefly turn back to look at him, the archaeologist reaching into his inside jacket pocket to pull out the amulet. "Take this!"

As Mitchell automatically raised his hand to catch the amulet as it was tossed in his direction, Spike took a brief glance around before he hurried off around the nearest corner; there was only one reason why Sam would give Mitchell that amulet, but right now there were too many people around him to take the obvious next step (Getting yanked away to wherever that thing was whenever he moved too far away from it _always _hurt).

With no idea what might be waiting for them after they managed to catch up with whoever had just abducted Vala, the only way Mitchell could any help right now was if Spike 'hitched a ride'.

As Mitchell rounded the corner on his bike, Spike jumped into the bike's path, his body almost automatically shifting itself into a position where he had 'merged' with his friend's body, leaving him sitting on the bike 'inside' Cam's body as the two of them hurtled along the road after the car that had apparently taken Vala.

It wasn't exactly the most comfortable ride Spike had ever experienced, of course- this kind of stunt still gave him the creeps; the fact that he was going to hold this for a while if he was going to avoid attracting attention to the two of them only made it more annoying-, but as they slowly but gradually gained on the van holding Vala, Spike allowed himself a brief smirk at the thought of what was coming up.

He had a feeling that, after they caught up with those 'Trust' buggers, he was going to have a _very _enjoyable little encounter with the first bunch of humans he'd met since getting his soul back that he could beat up _without _feeling guilty about it…


	18. Recovering Vala

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

As he charged along the road after the car that currently held Vala, Mitchell tried to focus more on his current goal and less on his current… passenger, for lack of a better term… hiding out in the back of his head. Spike being able to 'hitch a lift' in peoples' bodies might be a cool trick to witness, but it just felt weird when it was actually happening to you; you couldn't shake the annoying feeling that somebody was watching you even when you knew that there was nobody there (In the physical sense of the word, anyway)…

Still, on the other hand, you got at least some degree of access to Spike's vampire reflexes; the guy couldn't actually _possess _people when he did this, but he was able to give them a slight 'nudge' to make them do stuff if the need arose when their simply human reflexes and senses weren't fast enough to register something that Spike had picked up…

"Pick up the pace, willya?" Spike 'yelled'- and _God_, that was weird; with Spike's voice technically coming out of his mouth while he was 'inside' Mitchell, it _sounded _like Spike was simultaneously right behind him and a few inches in front- as Mitchell felt his body involuntarily shift to increase the speed of the motorcycle, breaking his train of thought as he continued to race after the car that apparently held Vala.

"Yeah, no offence, but you got any ideas about what we're going to _do _when we get there?" Mitchell pointed out, grateful that he didn't need to worry about being discreet at this pace; anyone sharp enough to hear that he was essentially talking to himself and answering in a different voice in this kind of situation probably _deserved _to know the truth about Spike. "I mean, right now all I can do is find out where they're going; in case you've forgotten I'm not exactly heavily _armed _here, you know!"

"Just get us up alongside that sodding car; I've got a _plan_!" Spike retorted, Mitchell's body already pushing the bike further and faster even as Spike's words reached his ears (Or maybe his brain; now that Mitchell thought about it, if Spike was _in _him, was Spike actually speaking or was he just hearing Spike's thoughts?).

As they drew up alongside the car, Mitchell couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of panic; he might have decided to trust Spike in the field, but after so long reading about the Goa'uld- to say nothing of that incident with Ba'al brainwashing members of the Jaffa Council about a year back-, it was kind of hard to feel _entirely _comfortable dealing with a guy who could essentially take control of your _body _if you gave him just enough 'leeway' to 'gain access'…

"Look, Spike, if you're thinking we can _ram _this thing off-" he began.

"I'm not _that _stupid, Mitch; I just need to get close enough to get _inside _this thing!" Spike interjected, as he 'nudged' Mitchell just enough to move him a few inches closer to the car, which had by now pulled off down a side-road with no other traffic.

"Insi- ah; gotcha," Mitchell said, nodding in understand as Spike's intentions became clear to him; get in close enough to the car, and Spike might- wouldn't be easy, but it _was _possible- be able to 'jump' out of Mitchell and into the car without anyone else who might be on the road really _seeing _him 'jump' out of Mitchell's body (Or, even if they _did _see him, they'd probably pass it off as some kind of brief optical illusion of some sort; when you got down to it- to say nothing of factoring the existence of _demons _into your world-view-, it really was amazing how often people must have been kidding themselves for centuries to avoid facing the reality of the world they lived in).

No sooner had he finished processing what Spike was planning then he had pulled up to the car- he was now only a couple of feet away from the side at this point-, followed by a sudden temporary feeling of 'emptiness' as Spike 'jumped' out of his body- it wasn't a _bad _feeling; it just felt 'odd' having someone 'jump' out of him after it had been there for the past while, kind of like an inverted version of how it felt a bit strange getting out of a pool after going for a swim- and into the car, prompting Mitchell to pull back a few feet while keeping an eye on his target.

If he'd learned anything about Spike's methods over the last few weeks, it was that, when the vampire wanted to get physical, things would definitely start flying, and he didn't want to be _too _close to the car when Spike started doing what he did best.

* * *

As he 'landed' inside the car- and _God_, he was grateful he had enough 'control over his environment' to stay in one place once he'd got his feet on the ground; it would just _royally _suck if he'd been thrown out of this thing after the trouble he'd gone to in order to get here-, Spike smiled casually at the shocked Trust agents before him as they sat around the currently-bound Vala; evidently news of _his _presence at the SGC hadn't become public knowledge to these buggers yet.

"Hello there, gents," he said, waving nonchalantly at them before he glanced at the group's prisoner with a slight grin. "Sorry we took a while, Vala; been a _real_ pain to track-"

The sound of a gunshot drew Spike's attention back to the Trust agents, one of whom- a woman dressed in dress blues who looked a bit like a harsher version of Sam; evidently she was the 'Colonel Carter' that detective guy had told them had come to pick Vala up- was staring at the gun that he now held in front of him in shock at the lack of effect it seemed to have had on Spike.

Glancing behind himself, Spike's grin grew broader as he realised that the bullet had hit the window behind him, leaving him unharmed while creating a not-insignificant crack back there; at least he'd given them a physical demonstration about what he was capable of (While also establishing that the windows were bulletproof; at least that limited his need for restraint in case civilians came along who might get caught in the crossfire).

"Now then, mate," Spike said, tutting slightly as he turned back to look at the woman who'd just fired the gun at him. "_That _wasn't very smart, was it?"

With that, he shifted into his vamp face- maybe it was just a psychological thing, but he felt that he was… _better _at touching stuff when he was more in touch with his demon- and lunged at the man who'd shot him, slamming the man's head into the side of the car and sending him falling to the ground. As he spun around to punch the Sam look-a-like in the face, he smiled slightly as he noticed Vala wrapping her cuffed hands around the neck of the driver, forcing his hands off the steering wheel and making him lose control.

As the car spun around to the side before sharply overturning, Spike tried to grab Vala in some half-arsed attempt to protect her- he had to be operating on mad instinct; how much could he really do to protect her when he didn't even have a _body _any more?-, only for Vala to fall _through _him as the car spun over and over, finally coming to a rest on the side of the road- fortunately the right way up- as Spike, lacking anything to keep himself inside the car- found himself flying through the door to land on the ground, briefly finding himself flying _through _a couple of nearby trees- and _God_, wood looked _weird _from the _inside_- before he finally hit the ground (Which, fortunately, he did _not _fall through; he wasn't sure _how _he'd have stopped falling if he didn't have this whole 'instinctively solid enough to walk' thing going for him).

"_Damn_…" he muttered, getting back to his feet as he glanced back at the fortunately-still-deserted road, quickly noting that Vala was scrambling to her feet and getting out of the car while Mitchell pulled up alongside the crash site, leaping off the bike and drawing his gun before he registered that all of the people he might have used it against were either dead or just out of it.

"You all right?" he asked her, only for Vala to automatically raise her hands, an anxious expression on her face as she crouched on the ground beside the door she'd just crawled out of.

"Hey," the colonel said, lowering his weapon reassuringly, apparently unaware of Spike as he currently hurried towards the two of them- not that Spike could blame him; without the need to brush branches aside he was making really good time getting back, but he wasn't making much noise to let Mitchell know he was there either-, "everything's going to be OK-"

Before he could say anything more, one of the men from the car- how the bastard had remained conscious after all that Spike _really _didn't know- suddenly leapt out of his door, his gun raised to fire at Mitchell, only for the gun to be knocked out of his hand before he could get off more than one shot when Spike literally leapt _through _the man in question, following it up with a quick kick to the head that was followed almost instantaneously by Mitchell shooting him in the chest, leaving the man dead on the ground.

"Huh," Mitchell said after a moment's pause, prompting Spike to turn around and look at him. "Interesting trick."

"Thanks; been practising," Spike replied, nodding briefly at the lieutenant-colonel before he turned back to look slightly awkwardly at Vala (And _God_, what _was _it about this woman that put him on edge so much?-, who was staring at him with horrified confusion evident on her face. "Ah… look, if it helps, I'm not going to-"

Before Spike could say anything else, the sound of a car was heard from the other end of the road, a blue vehicle pulling up alongside the crash site as Spike and Mitchell looked anxiously at Vala.

"Oh my God," the driver- a young man, maybe not much older than twenty at best- asked as he stepped out of the vehicle, looking in confusion at the sight before him. "Is anybody hurt?"

* * *

"No, we're fine; we just… well, our friend got picked up by a bad group; let's leave it at that," Mitchell said, looking over at the clearly-shaken Vala while trying to look reassuring; after Spike had just jumped _through _a guy in front of a Vala who clearly didn't know who they were, the last thing they needed was her freaking out after everything they'd gone through to try and find her. "Look, we've… got some… friends coming who'll be here to pick us up soon; if you could just… move on, we'll be fine."

"Uh… sure," the man said, nodding briefly at Mitchell uncertainly before he walked back to the car, slowly getting into it as though he was waiting for someone to say something before he finally got back into the car and drove off, leaving Mitchell and Spike to exchange relieved glances before they turned back to Vala.

"Well," Spike said after a moment's pause, as he looked uncertainly at the space thief- evidently his experience with memory loss on a previous occasion wasn't much help when dealing with someone else suffering from it, "now that that's out of the way-"

"Do… do I… know you?" Vala interjected, looking at Spike with an uncertain expression on her face as though trying to place his face.

"Me?" Spike repeated, looking at Vala in surprise; he didn't think he'd made _that _much of an impression on her in the couple of weeks they'd spent together…

"Yeah, you know him; Spike joined our team- I'm a member too- a couple of months before you… went missing," Mitchell confirmed, nodding at Vala before he stepped uncertainly towards her, filing the implications of her remembering Spike rather than him away for later consideration. "Look, this is a… well, it's a long story, and we're not exactly in the right kind of place to tell you it; any chance you could… come along and let us… fill you in on things in more detail?"

For a moment Vala simply looked silently between the two men, clearly trying to come to a decision- not that Mitchell could blame her; after being abducted by the Trust already it was only understandable that she'd be a bit uncomfortable about things- before she nodded slowly and turned to look at Spike.

"All… all right," she said, looking at him with an expression that it was nearly impossible to decipher but that Mitchell was encouraged to note at least appeared less hostile than it might have done. "So… what now?"

"Well…" Mitchell said, looking reflectively at the bike for a moment before he dismissed that idea- Vala was still getting used to the idea that they were here to _help _her; asking her to trust him on a motorbike with her right behind him might be pushing it a bit- and pulled out his phone. "Just let me call someone, and then we'll-"

"_No_!" Vala yelled, automatically moving as though she wanted to grab the phone from Mitchell, only to stop herself mid-motion. "I… I mean…"

Mitchell nodded in understanding.

"I get it; you're… going to need more time… to get comfortable with that idea, huh?" he said, slipping the phone into his pocket as he looked reassuringly at her, even as he tried to work out how long they had until anybody from the SGC caught up with them; hopefully they'd have at least enough time to convince Vala that they weren't insane.

"OK," he said, moving over to pick up his bike and take it off to the side of the road- if they waited by the upturned car, people might just think they'd had an accident, and he could easily say they'd already called for assistance if someone passing stopped to offer help-, "your name is Vala Mal Doran. You're a member of Stargate Command, a top-secret facility located beneath Cheyenne Mountain. It's the command center for a military organization responsible for off-world exploration and reconnaissance by means of a device known as a stargate, a portal which allows near-instantaneous transport between planets.

Vala could only stare at him after that.

"What?" she said, looking slightly blankly at him.

"I know it sounds crazy, but it's the truth," Mitchell said, shrugging slightly. "Seriously, if I was lying to you, wouldn't I have come up with something _less _whacko?"

"Uh… OK…" Vala said, nodding slightly uncertainly at him. "So… we're… space explorers?"

"Well, technically, me and my team are the explorers," Mitchell clarified. "You're just along for the ride, because... well, you're not originally from this planet. You're an alien."

Vala's eyes widened.

"Well, in the technical sense of you weren't born on Earth; from what I've gathered you're descended from a bunch of humans who got taken off Earth centuries back by these snake-like things…" Spike added, waving a hand uncertainly before he shrugged as Vala looked at him in confusion. "Hey, I only joined this outfit a month ago myself; I'm still getting _my_ head around everything myself."

"Ah," Vala said, swallowing slightly before she indicated the area where Spike had jumped through the now-dead man. "And… you can do that… how? Are… are you an… _alien _too?"

"Actually, he's a ghost vampire who got sent to us in an amulet by some ex-member of a black ops operation who used to hunt and experiment on demons; it's… well, it's a _really _long story…"

"I'll bet," Vala muttered, but Mitchell and Spike were both relieved to note the slight smile on her face as she looked between them, even if it fell away a few moments later. "Hold on; he's a _vampire_?"

"Look, I don't feed on humans, and in any case I'm pretty much as close to being a ghost as you can get; why would I even _need _to eat?" Spike pointed out, shaking his head as he glared briefly over at Mitchell before turning his attention back to the matter at hand. "Anyway, look, the point is that you were abducted by some renegade aliens who're hiding out on Earth and wanted to try and find out something you knew from… a while back… and as far as we can tell the gizmo they were using to hack your mind backfired and you lost your memory."

"Ah," Vala said, nodding slightly in uncertain understanding before she looked at the two men again. "And… what happens now?"

"Well… we've got this device back at Stargate Command that should be able to help you remember what you've forgotten; if you come back with us…" Mitchell began, waving a hand uncertainly as he looked at Vala. "Look, I get that you don't have any _reason _to trust us, but-"

"I know him," Vala said, indicating Spike.

The two men blinked.

"Me?" Spike repeated.

"Well, I know I can… _trust _you; I just don't remember _how _I know that… does that make sense?" Vala asked, looking uncertainly at Spike.

Spike shrugged. "Got me there, Val; we had a few interesting chats while I was there before you vanished on us, but that's all I can tell you about us either way."

Once again, Vala simply sat in silence for a few moments, looking contemplatively at Spike, before she finally nodded.

"OK," she said, swallowing slightly as she looked at the intangible vampire. "What now?"

"Well, first order of business is for me to call for a ride; everything else we can worry about when we get back," Mitchell added, pulling out his phone and dialling the relevant number. "After that…"

Even as he tried to appear nonchalant about this whole situation, he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that Vala's recognition of Spike over him was going to be _very _significant later on…

He wouldn't bring it up _now_, of course- teasing Jackson about Vala's flirting was kind of amusing normally, but teasing a vampire and an amnesic about the possibilities didn't really appeal to him when one of them didn't know how they related normally-, but he'd have to keep it in mind for later…


	19. Searching for the Odyssey

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: This takes place a couple of days after the events of the last chapter, and leads into the events of this reality's take on "Company of Thieves"

The Ghost in the Team

"So," Mitchell asked as he casually walked into Vala's room, smiling nonchalantly at the former thief as she stared in frustration at the nearest wall- much like she'd been doing ever since regaining her memory about her past and the subsequent realisation of what she'd done before she remembered it all-, "how's things?"

"You mean, aside from the fact that there's this… _thing _with Spike that even _I _didn't know I had?" Vala asked, looking over at Mitchell with a pointed glare. "Yeah, I'm fine; thanks for asking, now just _go_, OK?"

Mitchell knew that he didn't need to take it personally; ever since Vala had regained her full memory- and hence regained her full awareness of her real relationship with all concerned parties at the SGC-, she'd been subject to more than the occasional teasing comment about the fact that she'd 'recognised' Spike before anyone else. For a while Mitchell had wondered why getting teased about the thing with Spike was an issue for Vala after all the flirting she'd done with Daniel, until he'd come to the conclusion that part of the problem was that it was _her _being teased this time.

It wasn't that Vala was particularly thin-skinned or sensitive to teasing comments; she just liked to know that she was in control of a situation (Most likely a hang-up caused by her time as a host to Qetesh; Mitchell strongly doubted that something like _that _would leave you feeling comfortable in _any _situation you didn't have complete control over), and this whole Spike situation was definitely something where Vala had apparently had _no _choice.

"You sure about that?" he asked, looking slightly curiously at Vala. Normally he would have left this particular issue alone, but at the moment SG-1 was essentially on stand-down as a full team until they could find something about the location of the Sangraal, each team member attending to some of their personal 'missions'. Sam, for example, was currently off on a mission investigating an anonymous tip about a second possible Supergate; the source of the information was unconfirmed, but the readings and information that had accompanied it were so similar to the data that they'd obtained when the original Supergate had been activated that they'd decided they'd be stupid _not _to take a look at it.

Daniel, on the other hand, was currently checking over a few books he'd ordered on Spike's recommendation- apparently Spike had a few supernatural-themed contacts he'd gone to now and again for assistance in his past who were relatively neutral on the whole 'good/evil' issue, even if he'd rarely contacted them due to his own dislike of magic due to his limited ability to control it himself- to try and look up other possible means of restoring Spike to corporeal status- the vampire naturally doing what he could to 'help' despite his difficulty in making contact with any of the books himself-, while Teal'c was currently spending some time at the Jaffa High Council on Dakara to help try and reassure any remaining concerns about the continued alliance with the Tau'ri. With Vala still tired and frustrated after what had happened during her amnesia, and Mitchell lacking anything else to really do at this point, he'd decided to see what he could find out about her Spike-related issues in a more casual scenario.

"Huh?" Vala asked, turning to look at him in confusion, drawing his train of thought back to the matter at hand.

"Well, you have to admit, you and Spike _do _make an interesting… duo," Mitchell said at last (It wasn't the best term, he had to admit, but the others that sprang to mind might make Vala more annoyed than she was at present; at least 'duo' could be argued that it was in a 'Dynamic Duo' sense rather than the option he was _actually _implying). "I mean, from what he's _told _us about himself since we met Agent Finn, you both started out as… not the pleasant people to know… and ended up going through some _pretty _major shifts because somebody else gave you a chance…"

Noting Vala's pointed glare, Mitchell raised his hands apologetically. "Hey, I'm just pointing it out; I'm not trying to _imply _anything here…"

"Well, _don't_," Vala said, returning her glare to the wall before her. "There is nothing _to _imply about me and Spike; we're on the team together, and that's it."

"Y'know, the fact that you keep on saying this _should _make it more convincing…" Mitchell said, smiling slightly at Vala even as she shifted her gaze to look at him with a stare so intense that he almost felt like he was going to be incinerated.

"There. Is. _Nothing_. There," Vala repeated, before she rolled over slightly on her bed to glare at the wall once more.

For a moment, Mitchell could only stare at her, a contemplative expression on his face at the implications- he was starting to get the impression that his old theory about Vala's disgust at her lack of control in this situation might be more accurate than he'd originally suspected-, until the base's announcement system suddenly activated.

"_This is General Landry_," the general's voice said over the radio. "_SG-1 please report to the conference room_."

"Huh," Mitchell said, standing up and looking curiously at Vala. "Well, we'd better get going; we can discuss this-"

"_Never_," Vala finished, another glare being directed at Mitchell before she got up and headed into the corridor outside her door, leaving Mitchell with no alternative but to follow her, even as he made a mental note to get back to the talk about the Spike thing with Vala later; there was just something so amusing about the whole situation...

* * *

"The _Odyssey_'s in trouble," General Landry said, looking grimly around at the remaining members of SG-1 as they entered the conference room, Spike walking through the wall rather than via the door- it sometimes seemed as though he'd decided to enjoy his intangible status as long as he had it despite his still-present complaints about it- and Teal'c being currently absent from the main group. "Our last communication from them informed us that they were approaching the location where the Supergate had been said to be located at, and then we received nothing until a distress call was broadcast telling us that they were under attack by three Goa'uld motherships, shields and hyperdrive disabled and about to be boarded."

"Ah, _nuts_..." Mitchell muttered, shaking his head grimly as he looked in frustration at Landry. "So, I take it that means we can safely assume the information about the Supergate was faked?"

"From what they said, that's pretty much a certainty," Landry replied. "We began receiving telemetry from the emergency transponder approximately thirty minutes after the distress call came in."

"Unfortunately, it doesn't tell us anything about the condition of the ship or crew?" Daniel asked; he might be finding the texts Spike had managed to help him find interesting reading- the idea that magic was _real _was making him re-evaluate several of his old interpretations of some of the myths he was reading-, but he sometimes got so caught up in what he was doing that he missed some updates on current events at the SGC.

"All we've got is that it's badly damaged; specifics about its current condition are unknown at this time," Landry replied.

"Anything on who might have been behind this?" Daniel asked.

"Given that the original tip was anonymous, not really," Landry replied with a brief shake of his head. "We maybe should have been more suspicious, but as you all know things have been going fairly well lately, and the information seemed good; we can't exactly anticipate everything that might happen, particularly with the Sangraal still unaccounted for and the possibility of new Ori forces finding a way into this galaxy any day."

"Still no progress finding a weakness in that ship I got you yet?" Spike asked.

"Nothing specific, anyway," Landry replied. "The shields are just too strong for anything we could use against them; we've tried devising a means of modifying the transporters to penetrate the shields' operating frequencies, but the systems are so complex that identifying the specific energy frequency they generate isn't easy..."

"Getting back to the _Odyssey _issue," Vala put in, raising a casual hand, "we have a signal; shouldn't we check it out?"

"Good point," Spike said, smiling slightly as he glanced over at the Stargate. "And fortunately, we _do _have a few people willing to grant me a couple of favours after I saved their planet..."

"Point," Landry said, nodding briefly at Spike before he looked around at the rest of the team. "You'd better get ready to go, but be sure to be careful; we still don't know who's behind this."

"Which means undercover, right?" Vala asked, her smile growing at the thought. "I always enjoy those ones..."

* * *

A few hours later, as they flew through hyperspace- quite possibly the dullest other dimension Spike had ever experienced or heard of in his unlife; even the world of nothing but shrimp at least had the slight curiosity factor of how the damn things survived in a reality consisting entirely of themselves-, Spike was already wondering if this was a good idea.

The ship itself was in relatively good shape- a rather nimble thing called an al'kesh which they'd received from the Jaffa without much complaint after learning that Spike was the one who wanted it; being a hero to the Free Jaffa Nation definitely got you some interesting perks, the vampire had to admit-, and the clothes they'd been given at least left him feeling relatively assured that he wouldn't stick out too much in his own outfit- Daniel, Mitchell and Vala were all in varying styles of brown or black leather jackets and trousers while Teal'c wore a sleeveless black leather vest and a hat to conceal his tattoo- so long as he kept his jacket buttoned up to conceal his shirt, but he couldn't help but wonder if this kind of thing was putting too much faith in him too quickly.

He'd never been that great at blending in with humans in prolonged social interaction back when he'd been evil, and most of the times when he'd done that _without _killing people had been back when he was dealing with people who already knew who and what he was. Add in the fact that he couldn't even _touch _anything now...

"So, how're we doing this?" he asked at last, looking uncertainly over at Mitchell in an attempt to take his mind off his concerns about the upcoming mission. "Find the _Odyssey_, beam over there and get it all moving?"

"Until we know anything else, yeah," Mitchell confirmed with a brief nod. "Actually, you'll probably be the advance party; given that we don't know what the situation might be there, add in the fact that your amulet's pretty much indestructible and you can't actually be hurt in the first place, you're pretty much our best bet if something's wrong."

Spike knew that he should have felt offended at his role in the plan just being 'decided' for him like that, but he had to admit that he actually wasn't that bothered; in a weird way, he actually liked it.

It might not have been gained in a manner that he'd particularly appreciated at the time- getting burnt to ash like that had _not _been pleasant-, but he had the power to make a uniquely positive contribution to the team, while simultaneously being in a position where he really didn't know as much about the current 'rules' as he might have liked; he might not exactly _like _being stuck at the mercy of others like this, but he was getting used to it, and there were a lot of worse places he could have been sent to...

"Our long-range sensors indicate that the signal coming from the _Odyssey _transponder is changing location," Teal'c put in, breaking Spike's introspective chain of thought.

"It's moving?" Spike asked.

"It appears to be travelling at sublight speeds," Teal'c responded. "Altering course to intercept..."

He smiled slightly as he glanced back at the others. "We are within range of the transponder; I am taking us out of hyperspace now."

As soon as the screen before them had begun to show stars once more, Spike allowed himself to relax for a few moments before a holographic display appeared between the screen and the rest of the group, showing a planet with a highlifted red dot on one of the continents.

"The signal now appears to be originating from that planet," Teal'c explained, studying the readouts before them. "Sensors are picking up numerous lifeforms."

"If life support were compromised, they could have landed the ship for repairs," Daniel noted, prompting a reflective nod from Teal'c as he tapped a few more controls on the console in front of him.

"They are not responding to our hails," the Jaffa said, before turning his attention back to the display as it focused in on the location of the transponder signal, revealing the image of some basic-looking buildings. "There appears to be a small civilisation on the surface."

"I _knew _I recognised this planet..." Vala said with a brief smile.

"Friends of yours?" Mitchell asked, looking over at the former thief.

"The Goa'uld used to have a ship-building facility here," Vala replied. "It's now been taken over by the former human slaves. From what I know, they have ties with the Lucian alliance."

"The who?" Spike asked.

"Bunch of space smugglers who came together after the Goa'uld fell to try and take advantage of the resulting power vacuum; we've had issues ever since they lost a bunch of ships when the Ori first came into this galaxy," Mitchell explained, before returning his attention to Vala. "So, basically, this place is a chop-shop?"

"True, but on the bright side, I have a contact here," Vala added with a slight smile. "Of course, he might get skittish if we _all _show up, so it could be a good idea for me to go in alone-"

"Speaking as the one-time big bad, that plan _sucks_," Spike put in, glancing over at Vala. "I mean, we come all this way to find that the thing we've been tracking has been dumped on a planet controlled by a bunch of space thieves who _already _have issues with us? Am I the only one thinking 'trap'?"

"All the more reason why we shouldn't all go," Vala responded. "Trust me, if he knows anything, I'll be able to get it out of him, but the key is to be an inconspicuous and as non-threatening as possible."

Exchanging glances with Mitchell, Spike could only nod in confirmation of Vala's reasoning; if they had a chance to solve this quietly, it was worth a shot.

"If you like, I can take Daniel," Vala added.

"And Spike," Mitchell put in.

"Pardon?" Vala and Spike asked, looking sharply at Mitchell.

"Well, he can stay in the background pretty easily, and all we need to do to make sure he stays with you if something goes wrong is have one of you two take the amulet," Mitchell explained, ignoring the slightly scathing glare from Vala as he indicated the intangible vampire. "So long as Spike stays out of sight of anyone you meet- which should be pretty simple to do given that he can actually hide _in _stuff rather than just _behind _it-, it's perfect."

"Y'know, I'm not just some party trick you can pull out every time you need me-" Spike began with a mockingly indignant tone, only to hold up his hands in a conciliatory manner as the other members of SG-1 (Spike was almost surprised at his use of 'other'; did he really count himself as one of them after so little time?) turned to glare at him. "Hey, I'll do it; that's just what I do, OK?"

* * *

Standing in frustration inside one of the walls of the warehouse that had been identified as the location of Vala's contact- there weren't any decently-sized piles of junk inside the warehouse that he could hide in, and the walls were think enough for him to stand in without anyone seeing his face if he positioned himself properly-, Spike couldn't quite restrain the urge to punch something- he might not actually _feel _anything when he was like this, but that didn't stop him from _thinking _that he should be uncomfortable when he was like this- as Vala and Daniel approached the man Vala had identified as her contact Borzin; a slightly overweight man with scraggy light brown hair in a dark top that might have once been green with light brown leather around his shoulders and wrists.

"Vala Mal Doran," Borzin said, walking up to Vala while Daniel casually studied his surroundings- they'd decided to play him off as slightly handicapped to encourage Borzin to underestimate him-, "I never thought you'd show your face in these parts again."

"Borzin, you slimy, two-faced grease peddler," Vala countered, prompting Borzin to place one hand over his heart with a mockingly pained expression on his face.

"Come on," Vala said suddenly, "give us a hug."

Spike tried to restrain the slight spike of jealousy as Vala ran up to Borzin and jumped into his arms- something that she couldn't do with _him_ as long as he was in this state (Not that he _minded_, of course; he was in love with _Buffy_, after all)-, Borzin picking up her up with a slight wince as she gave him a quick thump on the back.

"And what poor loser have you conned into your company this time?" Borzin asked as he put Vala down to look briefly at Daniel before walking Vala over to a bench behind a larger pile of junk (Spike could just about see and hear the conversation through a couple of gaps in the pile thanks to his enhanced senses; no point in running over there unless he had to).

"Oh, this is my apprentice, Shamus," Vala said with a slight smile as the two turned back to look at Daniel.

"You must be learning a great deal," Borzin said with a slight smile.

"More than I'd like to," Daniel replied with a nod and an exaggeratedly stupid-looking grin on his face.

"Actually..." Vala added, whispering something that Spike couldn't quite make out over the sounds of the workshop- he vaguely caught a reference to a bet, but even an obvious 'stage whisper' was too loud for him to hear right now-, before Borzin turned back to look at Daniel.

"Don't trust her," the other man said as he looked at Daniel with a casual grin. "She _will_ sell you out for a bad lunch the first chance she gets."

"I know," Daniel replied with the same stupid-looking grin.

"He likes me," Vala said, pointing at Daniel and chuckling slightly as Daniel shrugged again. "Isn't that cute?"

"What do you want, Vala, if you haven't already stolen it from me?" Borzin said in a more serious tone; evidently the time for casual banter in this conversation had come and gone.

"We're looking for some information," Vala replied.

"About a Tau'ri ship that was attacked not far from here," Daniel added. "Any information you can give us..."

"Oh..." Vala said as though something had just occurred to her, placing a hand on Borzin's back and walking past Daniel to talk to Borzin more directly, her voice now so low that all Spike could really make out was Borzin saying "No," to something Vala said before the dealer shook his head sceptically.

"You know," he said, looking upwards in reflection, "I've heard that before-"

"All right, try this," Vala said, her hands on her hips as she glared at Borzin. "We traced the signal from the ship's emergency transponder here. I know..."

After that, Vala's voice lowered again, her back to Spike as she continued to address Borzin making it hard for him to hear what she was saying as she continued to stare at the man in front of her.

"Wow... offers that can't be refused," Borzin said as Vala finished, before he began to walk towards what looked like a bench (Although Spike admitted that it could be something else; he could make out some small bits of junk- for lack of a better term- through the components of what was probably some kind of spaceship engine in front of him, but this angle made it hard to tell), returning to where Daniel had joined Vala with a black rectangular box with a glowing blue line around its middle in his hands.

"Is this what you're looking for?" he asked, holding up the object for them to look at.

"That's _Odyssey_'s data recorder," Daniel said, taking the box from Borzin and studying it intently. "The transponder's still broadcasting."

"Where did you get this?" Vala asked, looking pointedly at her contact.

"A man brought it a few hours ago," Borzin replied as he took the box back. "He said it could fetch me a very nice price."

Holding the box up, he seemed to smile slightly at Daniel and Vala- with his back to the wall Spike couldn't be certain- as he pressed a button on the object in his hands.

"_Anateo is my name_," a voice said from the box with what sounded to Spike like a slightly Spanish accent, "_and believe me, I am part of no alliance of any kind_."

Whatever else 'Anateo' had to say was never heard as Borzin pressed a button on the device that apparently caused it to fast forward, the box resuming speech with the more familiar voice of Colonel Carter coming out of it.

"It's not designed to be shut off," the missing SG-1 member said. "It activates automatically and stays on."

"Then remove it," Anateo's voice said.

"Don't do it, Colonel," another voice said that Spike vaguely recognised as the voice of the _Odyssey_'s commander (It had been a while since he'd met the guy and they hadn't spoken that much at the time anyway). "That's an order."

That statement was followed by a gunshot, only for Borzin to turn the recorder off before anything else could be said.

"You want more, show me the naquadah," Borzin said, holding up his left hand and rubbing his fingers together in what seemed to be the universal sign for a request for cash.

"You know," Daniel said, clearly trying to take back control of the situation, "that thing's useless to me unless I know who gave it to you."

"Oh, timing's everything," Borzin said, before he pointed behind the two SG-1 members. "Him."

Spike only just had time to take in the sight of a guy in some kind of black leather outfit holding a gun that looked a bit like a rearing cobra standing beside another pile of junk- he must have come in a side door while Spike was focused on his new teammates' conversation- before the weapon he was holding fired two bursts of what looked like electricity at Daniel and Vala, sending them falling to the ground as Borzin smiled at the other man.

_Damnit_... Spike groaned, as the new arrival walked over to shake Borzin's hand in a manner that made it clear that they'd planned for this latest twist. _So much for a simple pick-up_...

He just hoped that Daniel's theory about how he could stay in someone's body was accurate; staying in Mitchell's body on a bike wasn't the same as _this_...


	20. Faith in the Ghost

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Hope you like this; working out how Spike could get on board without anyone from the Lucian Alliance noticing him wasn't easy, but I think I came up with something that got the job done...

AN 2: For clarification, I'll be focusing more on Spike's actions on board the _Odyssey _at this point; Mitchell's actions during his attempt to infiltrate the Alliance will be covered briefly, but since his role at this point in the story is going to remain essentially the same as it was in the original episode I saw no reason to rewrite it in depth and focus more on Spike's activities on the _Odyssey _instead

The Ghost in the Team

If there was one thing Spike hated about this new life he was involved in now, it was the way everything was so much more _complicated _to figure out.

Magic might be hard in _theory_, but once you had a grasp on _any _kind of spell you could pretty much disrupt anything you had to deal with before the other person could finish it.

Being stuck on board _Odyssey _like this, on the other hand...

He might be fairly certain that the SGC wouldn't want these 'Lucian Alliance' buggers- and he just _wished _he could stop himself from thinking about that sodding werewolf from _Underworld _whenever he thought of that name; the damn movie hadn't been _that _good- to get away with the ship, but with his limited technical knowledge he had absolutely no way of knowing if what he was thinking of doing was going to just make it harder to repair the ship or trigger the sodding self-destruct mechanism, and blowing it up with all these people on it would have been a bit extreme even if this _hadn't _been one of only a few ships Earth had to defend itself with right now.

Getting on board the ship had actually probably been the easiest part of the current mess, even if it had also been the most boring bit; while Borzin and the other guy had been busy sending a message to whoever had set this whole trap up in the first place, Spike had hurried over to his unconscious friends and lain down over Daniel's body, subsequently focusing his mind on remaining exactly inside the form of the archaeologist without anything trailing out (Fortunately his 'condition' worked like a more straightforward possession at this point; he'd have been in real trouble if his coat started dragging along the ground while the rest of his body remained inside Daniel and someone spotted it).

After being apparently teleported up from the planet's surface- unable to restrain a momentary wince as the amulet was briefly separated from him when Daniel's body was 'beamed up' before he caught up himself; he might have remained 'hidden' inside Daniel's body but that didn't mean he wasn't still aware of the moment when he and the amulet were separated like that-, Spike had found himself in what looked like another Al'kesh, spending the next few hours lying around in Daniel's body trying to recall some old movies he'd seen (It was the first time he'd been grateful that his current condition had also negated his ability to sleep- probably because there wasn't much point in sleep when his body didn't need to 'heal' itself, given its technically non-existent status; he'd worry about the possible effects on his mental state when he had to-; he needed to be _alert _if he was going to remain in Daniel's body). When they finally arrived at the _Odyssey_, Spike waited until leaving him to briefly slip out of his captors' grasps while they were hauling Daniel and Vala off to the rest of the prisoners while he lowered himself through the floor (He'd spent enough time on the ship to get a decent feel for where he was when he was in it again).

The only question now that he was on board was what he should actually _do _now. He might be fairly certain that Mitchell and Teal'c wouldn't give up on figuring out a way to get the ship back, but he had no way of knowing how long it would take them to get here or even if they could _do _anything that would help him out...

In the end, with his new friends' lives at stake- and _God_, he couldn't get over just how strange it felt to think of people as friends after so long being mainly tolerated by everyone back in Sunnydale-, his options at the moment were pretty limited; all he could do was try to find someone he knew and hope that he found a friendly face soon...

* * *

_Damnit_... Spike groaned, wishing he had a solid body so that he could thump his head against the wall. Even after spending the last couple of hours wandering around the ship, sticking his head through walls in a seemingly-vain attempt to find someone on his side on this thing- while simultaneously trying to stay hidden from any Lucian Alliance members; just because he couldn't be hurt himself didn't mean he wanted to start making trouble for any SGC prisoners who might still be on board by giving the Alliance a reason to resort to torture-, he still hadn't managed to find any trace of anyone in the ship's crew who could help him.

He _knew _he should have paid more attention to the plans he'd been shown of the ship when he had originally, but when he'd considered that he was only there to act as a 'spy' when they got to wherever they were going, coupled with the fact that he couldn't actually _do _anything anywhere he went, he'd thought the whole thing a bit pointless; he knew basically where the bridge was- not that he'd had much reason to go there without the rest of the team tagging along-, and he'd learned where his new teammates had been staying during that time, but that was about it.

If he didn't find something soon, he'd just go back to his original plan of punching out the bastards who'd taken the ship one by one until he found something useful...

Sticking the front part of his head through another wall- just enough to allow his eyes through without exposing the rest of him-, Spike allowed himself a relieved smile as he stared at the sight before him, a large group of people, gathered in what looked like a big storage room of some sort, wearing the dark green uniforms of the SGC staff while standing around a varied amount of boxes.

"Oh thank _God_..." Spike muttered, prompting the nearest three crewmembers- he had no idea how you determined ranks on this thing; he thought it was something about the stripes on the suits, but he wouldn't like to swear to it- to turn around and jump slightly in shock at the sight of him sending his head the rest of the way through the wall.

"What the-?" one of them- the group consisting of two women and one man- said, looking at him in shock.

"Look, it's OK, you sods; I'm on _your _side, OK?" Spike hissed. "Name's Spike; I came here with Danny-boy and Vala-"

"Doctor Jackson?" another woman said, looking at him in evident scepticism (Not that Spike could blame her; his hair alone probably didn't exactly give the impression of a guy who worked on a team that should be tackling stealth missions as much as they were able to go into a situation all guns blazing). "You... came here with Doctor Jackson?"

"Newest member of SG-1 here, basically; can we get past your natural scepticism and direct someone here who could actually tell me what to bloody _do_ in this situation?" Spike asked, rolling his eyes and wondering if he should look into a bit of a makeover if he ever managed to become solid again (And then wondered why that even mattered to him; when had he become the kind of sod who'd change his appearance for what was essentially just a _job_?).

"You don't have to worry about that," a more familiar voice said, prompting Spike to smile in relief as Daniel walked over to his wall, Sam and Vala close behind him. "We're right here."

"Thank whoever's bloody up there..." Spike groaned, as he looked between his friends. "You all OK?"

"For the moment, but I don't know how long that's going to last," Sam replied with a sigh. "Anateo- the commander who was in charge of this operation- wants me to repair the ship so he can take it back to the Lucian Alliance, but there's only so long that I can keep him distracted before he realises that I'm drawing out the repairs as long as possible."

"Any ideas why they want the ship?" Daniel asked.

"Or us, for that matter," Vala put in.

"No on both counts," Sam replied apologetically. "Not that it matters, anyway; with the transponder removed, Stargate Command doesn't have a hope of finding us."

"Yeah, and on that topic, how the hell'd these sods beat this thing anyway?" Spike asked. "I read the reports on these guys on the way here; I thought they just used old Goa'uld ships?"

"They do," Sam confirmed. "And you're right; normally a few ha'taks wouldn't be a problem for us, but not only had they lured us into a location near a neutron star where the radiation affected most of our systems such as sensors and shields, but they'd also set up a minefield that caused further damage to the ship. Add in the fact that we weren't _expecting _a direct ambush, and... well, you can see the results."

"Right..." Spike muttered, rolling his eyes slightly, wondering briefly at what seemed to be a fundamental rule of the universe; whether you were talking about demons, curses, or spaceships, everything had to have some kind of crucial subtle-yet-exploitable weakness...

"So our only hope right now is to somehow take the ship back?" Vala said, smiling slightly at the thought as she glanced over at Spike. "And fortunately, we have the _perfect _agent to get that done..."

"Pardon?" Spike said, looking at Vala in surprise before he sighed in frustration. "Look, it's not that I don't _want _to help out, but you've got to take into account that I really don't know that much about any of the stuff here; I'm pretty sure just getting the door open and letting you all out to start a riot isn't exactly what we're after-!"

"You're right when you say _that _wouldn't work," Sam said, a slight smile in her eyes as she looked thoughtfully at the intangible vampire. "There _might _be something else you could do, but it depends... how good is your memory?"

"Let's just say I remember things even when I _don't _want to," Spike said, grateful that the rest of his body was behind the wall as he shuddered slightly; the memory of his mother- or at least the vampire that had been his mother- trying to seduce him might have been repressed all these years, but he could still recall it pretty easily, and even the memories he'd held onto during his demon period like the memory of the first Slayer he'd killed remained pretty clear...

"Why do you ask?" he asked, wondering what his new friend was up to.

"Because I've had one idea to get us out of this that depends on you remembering _precisely _what I'm about to tell you," Sam replied.

* * *

Hurrying through the corridors towards the room Sam had directed him to, Spike tried to keep his focus on the small note he held in his hand- after it had been passed through a nearby air vent to reach him in his current location- and the route he had to take to get where he was meant to be going right now. The note was only a basic 'circuit diagram' of the system he'd be dealing with when he reached his destination that Sam had drawn up from memory on some scraps torn from another crewmember's logbook- the Lucian Alliance soldiers had only stripped them of their weapons rather than everything else-, but with radios unavailable it had been the only way to ensure he'd have the clearest possible idea of what to do with the equipment provided.

_How do I get into these sodding things_? Spike asked himself as he turned to run along another corridor. _Five years ago I was just your normal vampire, and now I'm running around a spaceship, stuck as some kind of sodding weird ghost, trying to outwit a bunch of space pirates_?

He wasn't sure what was freaking him out more at this point; the fact that he was in this position, or much he was becoming comfortable with it...

Then he found himself in front of the door that Sam had directed him towards, and thoughts of his personal comfort or otherwise in such a strange new lifestyle were pushed aside in favour of the immediate task. As quickly as possible, Spike entered the room, put the paper down on a nearby flat surface, and punched the man immediately in front of him in the face, following it up with as strong a kick as he could manage to the other guy's chest.

It wasn't his best blow, but it got the job done, anyway; both men were swiftly on the ground, unconscious for the immediate future, and Spike now had control of the _Odyssey_'s bridge (It might be damaged, but what _wasn't _to find cool about being in control of a whopping big starship?).

Sam had admitted that the plan they'd come up with wasn't exactly a foolproof one, given the potential number of Lucian Alliance officers on the ship and the likelihood of someone coming to the bridge while he was occupied, but it was the best that they could come up with in the time available. If Spike could gain control of the transporters- according to Carter-, he should be able to either beam the _Odyssey _crew out of the storage bay and into an armoury, or he could beam the Lucian Alliance officers into other parts of the city until he gave the crew time to get out on their own; the subcutaneous transmitters that the crew used- and _damn_, he found that slightly disturbing; it reminded him too much of his own chip for comfort- should allow him to tell one group from the other easily enough...

It was just unfortunate that he only had the basics of how these damn things worked; he was fairly confident that he could get them working once they were actually turned _on _in the first place, but like everything else on this damn bridge, the console had taken a significant amount of damage in the attack that had resulted in the Lucian Alliance capturing it in the first place. Sam had given him some pointers about how to fix it- and Vala had chipped in what she could based on her own attempts to steal the _Prometheus _a couple of years back (Spike made a mental note to ask about that when he could)-, but without any way to know what was intact and what wasn't there was no way for him to be sure of being accurate with this thing...

_Sod it_, he finally decided, using the sensors to track the room where Sam had said she would be taken to when she had to continue her work on the ship; there was only one other life-sign in the room in question, and it definitely _didn't_ have a subcutaneous transmitter.

This wasn't exactly a foolproof plan, but when it came to technology and magic, Spike had found that both had one thing in common; if you didn't know what you were doing with them, very unpleasant things tended to happen when you tried to use them.

"Here goes nothing..." Spike muttered, activating the transporter with a slight smile; at the very least, beaming out whoever was in there with Sam might give her time to do something about the transporters at _her _end...

Then he glanced out the _Odyssey_'s front window just in time to see a man dressed in the simple grey jacket and trousers of the Lucian Alliance, with no sign of a spacesuit or oxygen tanks of any sort, drifting around outside the ship, and he couldn't help but wince at what had just happened.

_Damn_... he thought, shuddering at the sight as the guy tried to fire his gun at the window, turning away to stop himself having to witness the guy's head explode or whatever happened to the human body in this situation.

It might have managed to get the job done, but he _really _didn't want to see someone die that way...

"Sam?" he said at last, reaching over to activate a radio on a frequency that he was fairly sure was transmitting to the room where his new teammate was currently located.

"_Spike_?" Sam's voice replied. "_What happened_?"

"Wasn't sure how to work this thing exactly, so I beamed the other sod in the room with you out, and... well, let's just say he's not going to be any trouble," Spike said grimly. "Now, any chance you could talk me through the fine details of getting these damn things working _properly_?"


	21. Retaking the Odyssey

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: In response to requests for some elements from "Angel" to be included in this story, I include this little teaser for a few upcoming events; hope you like it (Although I'll tell you this in advance so I'm not accused of giving anyone false hope; Spike will _not _be getting his body back in the same manner that he regained corporeal form in the series)...

AN 2: As the Spike/Vala relationship progresses, anyone got anything they'd particularly like to see Spike and Vala do together before Spike's body is restored to him?

The Ghost in the Team

Lindsey McDonald almost couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"The amulet was sent _where_?" he said, his voice a low growl of rage as he looked at Eve as she stood before him, an apologetic expression on her face as she stared back at him.

"As far as our contacts in the Colorado branch could confirm, it was sent to the Cheyenne Mountain facility after the destruction of the Hellmouth by a member of some group called the Demon Research Initiative," Eve replied, her tone remaining professional despite the evident regret in her expression. "Whatever's going on there is so highly classified even what government contacts we've established in the present administration can't tell us what's happening there; our best source of information for the group was lost when Vice-President Robert Kinsey was forced to resign over three years ago, and since then information about the facility's been impossibly secure."

"Even for Wolfram & Hart?" Lindsey said, looking sceptically at Eve; he knew that it was unfair to vent his frustration at the messenger, but he couldn't believe that his best tool for getting revenge on Angel could have been handed over to some people he'd never heard of even when he was in Wolfram & Hart by sheer _chance_. "I always got the impression that we had people everywhere-"

"Unfortunately," Eve said, her tone making it clear that making this admission to him was almost painful, "sometimes we exaggerate our resources; there are more than a few agencies out there where we only have people in relatively low-key situations rather than positions where they'll actually be _really _useful to us. Whatever's taking place in Cheyenne Mountain since they shut down NORAD, it's one of the most closely-guarded secrets we've ever uncovered; only a few people in the White House are even rumoured to know what it is, and most of the ones who were associated with us were caught and imprisoned by an in-house clean-up a few years ago. There are some reports that the former members of the group who weren't caught are operating underground, but if they are they're using a set of contacts we can't access; there hasn't been a _single _report from the demonic side of our affairs that they're doing anything..."

"OK, so you can't tell me what's there; I _get _that," Lindsey said, sighing in frustration as he stared upwards in contemplation for a moment before he returned his attention back to Eve. "But you _are _sure that Spike's there, right?"

"Reasonably sure, anyway," Eve replied. "Whatever they're doing down there generates an unusual energy reading that makes taking mystical scans of the base difficult at best- and there are some moments where the amulet seems to vanish for days at a time-, but it's definitely there, and Spike's there with it."

"Good," Lindsey said, allowing himself a slight smile before he nodded grimly. "Well then, guess it's time to test that old saying; if Mohammed won't go to the mountain, then set things up so he's dragged there himself."

"Hold on; you mean..." Eve said, looking uncertainly at the man who'd come to mean more to her than she'd ever imagined anything outside of her work could mean to her.

"Yep," Lindsey replied, as he walked off to the room that he'd set up as his 'study'. "Looks like I'm going to have to try and bump up the plan a few stages."

He'd have preferred to do this when Spike had spent at least a couple of months in Los Angeles to get attached to the city, but with the other vampire with a soul having been confirmed as having settled into another location, it looked like Lindsey would have to take a more direct role in the situation than he might have liked and hope for the best.

* * *

"So," Vala asked, looking uncertainly at Daniel as the two of them stood in the cargo bay that had been turned into the prison for the _Odyssey _crew, "how long do you think it's going to take for us to get out of here?"

"No way to tell, really," Daniel said with a grim sigh as he looked up at the ceiling. "I know that we told him all we could, but Spike said himself that he's not exactly a technical expert, and there's no way of knowing if the transporter systems will even be in good enough condition for him to-"

Daniel's further thoughts on that matter were cut short when he and everyone around him was suddenly surrounded by a bright white light, which subsequently faded to reveal the Odyssey's bridge, Spike standing casually behind a control console until he realised that he was standing partly inside the recently-promoted Captain Sheila Womack.

"Watch it!" the vampire- Daniel still sometimes wondered about Spike's true species and limitations, but he supposed he'd only be able to find out the truth if Spike became corporeal again- said, stepping forward so that he was standing in the control console as he turned to look at Womack. "I go to all the effort of getting you out of here, and then you go and _stand _in me?"

"Uh... sorry?" Womack said, looking uncertainly at the SGC's strangest recruit as she turned to study her usual control console, wincing slightly at the damage that it had sustained before she turned back to look at Spike. "So... thanks for saving us, I guess?"

"That'll do for a start, anyway..." Spike muttered, before he turned to activate the ship's broadcasting systems once again. "Hey, Sam, we've got what looks like everyone up in this area, and I _think _I got the Lucian Alliance sods in the cargo bay in their place; what's next?"

"_We need to focus our attention on repairing the ship's engine systems_," Sam's voice replied, Spike turning the volume up slightly so that she could better address the rest of the people in the room. "_From what I've been able to determine, shield emitters are operating at around fifty percent, and hull integrity's intermittent in some areas- nothing structurally damaging but it could be a problem if anyone goes into those areas before we can conduct repairs-, but hyperdrive has to be our main priority; we don't need to move _far_, we just need to get away from here so that we don't have to worry about the rest of the Alliance finding us until we can make more long-term repairs_."

"Understood, Colonel Carter," Major Kevin Marks- from what Daniel could see of the crew in the room around him, Marks was the highest-ranking _Odyssey _officer present- said, before he turned to address the rest of the crew. "All right, everyone, you heard Colonel Carter; we've got a lot to do and maybe not that much time to do it in. Everyone get to your posts and assess the necessary repairs needed to get this ship back to operating efficiency; if you're not needed to repair what you know most about, find somewhere you're needed."

As soon as Marks had finished speaking, the crew were heading out of the bridge and off to examine the rest of the ship, leaving Spike looking in frustration at the rapidly-emptying room.

"Oi, is anyone going to actually _thank _me for this?" he asked, rapidly turning around to try and find someone he could talk to. "I mean, I _did _just save the damn ship-"

He was cut off by surprise more than anything else when Vala suddenly leaned over from the other side of the console to place her lips close to his own, in a gesture that would have been a kiss if both participants had been solid.

"Thanks," Vala said as she pulled back, smiling at Spike in a slightly tentative manner. "I know it's not much, but..."

"Thought that counts, right?" Spike replied, nodding back at Vala with his own slight smile. "Thanks, Val; 'ppreciate it."

After a moment's uncertain silence as the three people left on the bridge looked around at each other, Daniel broke the silence with a slightly uncertain shrug.

"So," he said, indicating the chair where the _Odyssey_'s commander would usually sit, "since we're the only people on board who can't actually _contribute _to the repair effort, who wants to take the main chair?"

"You do it, Danny-boy," Spike replied with a nonchalant shrug, waving one hand through the chair for emphasis on his point. "I can't sit there and Val's not been on the team much longer than me; if anyone's going to be respected by the rest of the crew here, it's you."

For a moment, Daniel simply looked uncomfortably between the other two, before he nodded in resignation and sat down in the chair, looking over at his teammates with a slight smile.

"Well," he said, a slightly uncertain shrug his only acknowledgement of the way Vala's almost-kiss had slightly shifted the dynamics of their group, "we'd better get to work; as Marks said, we've only got a certain amount of time before the Lucian Alliance comes to get us..."

* * *

"And you are certain that this information is accurate, Colonel Mitchell?" Teal'c asked, his al'kesh remaining cloaked as he stayed close to the mothership where Colonel Mitchell was currently located.

Having run out of options on how to find the _Odyssey _by simply asking questions as themselves, Mitchell had come up with the plan of using the Re'ol chemical- capable of influencing the perceptions of others- to infiltrate the Lucian Alliance by posing as the rarely-seen lieutenant Kefflin in order to learn what had happened to the ship.

So far, despite the obvious risk of running into more than one person who knew what Kefflin looked like- the man may not be seen by the rest of the Alliance that much, but that wasn't the same as not being known to _anyone_-, the plan appeared to be working out fairly well. Having 'established' his identity with Netan, the current leader of the Alliance, Mitchell had been able to reveal the successful capture of the _Odyssey _after claiming to have 'overheard' it being discussed among his men, resulting in Netan revealing that he had dispatched a rebellious lieutenant to capture the _Odyssey _in the belief that the lieutenant- someone named Anateo, apparently- would lose, Anateo's victory thus leaving Netan in an awkward position unless he exerted his authority. According to Mitchell's latest update, another lieutenant had determined the ship's current coordinates and provided them to Netan, who was now on his way to capture the _Odyssey _for himself; Teal'c had only just managed to follow the ship into hyperspace without being detected before he lost track of it.

"_Yeah, I'm fairly sure of it; after what Netan did here, I don't think he's going to try a diversion when he doesn't think he needs it_," Mitchell muttered, his tone a grim one despite the obviously low volume he was forced to maintain to prevent himself being overheard. "_But we've got another problem right now; the guy who gave him this info is Tenat, and he's somehow managed to get control of an Alliance mothership_."

"Tenat?" Teal'c repeated in surprise. "The bounty hunter?"

"_Yeah, tell me about it; I've got no idea _how _that guy got to be in charge of anything over here, so don't ask_," Mitchell muttered grimly. "_He's keeping his mouth shut because he figures I'm scamming Netan and he wants a piece of the action, but that can't keep him quiet for long; I've managed to ring over to his ship, but the only plan I've got right now for dealing with this mess is... well, it's a bit risky_."

"We are SG-1, Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c said with a brief smile. "I can conceive of no circumstances where we have _not _come up with a plan that does not contain _some _element of risk."

"_Point_," Mitchell said with a slightly amused chuckle. "_Let's get on with this, then; wish me luck, and get ready to start firing if things go ugly_."

With that, he terminated the connection, leaving Teal'c with nothing more to do than continue to steer his al'kesh towards their destination and hope that the _Odyssey _crew would be prepared to fight back when they got there; as much as he trusted that Spike's unique condition would give them an unanticipated advantage in fighting the Lucian Alliance, the vampire was only one man.

As well as that, he also had to remember to prepare for the worst if Colonel Mitchell's latest plan failed; they might be SG-1, and be possessed of the luck that would have amazed true gods, but there was only so much luck you could count on before it ran out...

* * *

If there was one thing Spike found frustrating about his new role in the SGC, it was how little there was for him to do when he wasn't actively on a mission or fighting someone. He might have just managed to save the ship from being stolen, but his ability to do anything during the subsequent attempt to reconstruct it was really rather limited; not only were his computer skills virtually nonexistent, but then there was all that crap about how he couldn't concentrate long enough to actually _carry _anything for longer than a few seconds, which limited his ability to carry tools...

Right now, he was generally just trying to kill time by wandering around the corridors to check on how things were going with keeping the imprisoned Lucian Alliance members contained; with repairs going fairly well- structural integrity was solid enough for them to move, and shields and weapons were apparently up to a point where they'd at least be able to _try _and fight back if things went wrong-, guard duty seemed like the most obviously productive use of his time and effort at this point.

Add in the fact that it stopped him thinking too much about what had just happened on the bridge with him and Vala...

_Stop it_! he scolded himself, even as he knew it was pointless.

He didn't know it had happened, but that dark-haired, in-your-face ex-space-con had somehow made a _really _interesting impression on him and it wasn't showing any signs of dying down any time soon...

Spike almost couldn't believe he was even thinking this; after spending over a century with Dru, and taking well over a year to even come _close _to acknowledging how he now felt about Buffy, here he was, thinking about some woman he'd barely known for a couple of _months _like... like _this_?

He'd known that love was irrational, but moving on from Buffy _this _quickly after everything he'd gone through for her?

Then again...

When he got down to it, it wasn't like there'd been that much to get over; he might have loved Buffy to varying degrees for the better part of three years, and they'd definitely been close even _without _having any sex in the last year, but they'd never had an actual 'relationship' in the strictest sense of the word.

They'd humped like bunnies- he wasn't going to forget _that _any time soon-, but, looking back, Spike had to admit that they'd both been a mess at that point. He might have been honest when he'd thought that Buffy wanted him at that point, but it had never been about wanting _him_ as a person, it had been about wanting what he made her _feel_... and, as much as it sounded good phrased like that, self-loathing and pain weren't exactly loving emotions by any stretch of the imagination.

Even after she'd come to accept him back into the group after he'd gone and gained his soul back- and he was still slightly hazy on the details of how he'd actually managed to get back to Sunnydale in that state; he sometimes wondered if the ritual that restored his soul had helped him get past the brooding guilt portion of having his soul restored by having him 'burn' through it all at once in those delirious weeks immediately after getting it, given that Angelus had seemed fairly together apart from the whole conscience thing after he'd been cursed the first time-, he'd never been able to fully convince himself that she'd _loved _him.

She accepted him, she appreciated him, she needed him to talk to, but what she'd wanted from him had always been very specific, and he wasn't going to start lying to himself about that now when there wasn't any reason for him to do it.

Even with that resolution in mind, he still wasn't sure how he felt about that. How he'd felt about Buffy had defined so much of what he'd done the last few years that he wasn't sure how he felt about the fact that he didn't have to define himself by how she felt about him any more; he liked working with the SGC for the relative freedom it gave him to find his own place- even if he still wasn't sure how he'd cope once he got his body back-, but that didn't automatically fill the void her absence had left in his life on its own.

But Vala...

He hadn't _needed _her to do anything- he hadn't even _asked _her for anything-, and she'd still kissed him (Or at least she would have kissed him if he'd had a body for her to make contact with in the first place)...

Add in the fact that he really found her to be fairly pleasant company- she was the only member of the SGC he'd met who actually seemed willing to consistently _relax _right now; everyone else always maintained some kind of professionalism that put him a bit in mind of Captain Cardboard, no matter how much they relaxed when not in a direct combat situation or the fact that they treated him a hell of a lot better than the Iowan prat had ever done-, with a lively, somewhat whacky attitude that he had to admit put him a bit in mind of a saner, less murderous version of Dru with some bits of Buffy's tendency to natter on thrown in, and...

_Oh God_... he thought to himself, his eyes widening in shock at himself.

He really _did _feel something for her...

He wouldn't go so far as saying that he was _in love _with Vala yet- it had _definitely _been too soon for that; even when he'd dived into things with Dru there'd been the obvious sire/childe bond to strengthen the connection between them-, but there was definitely _something _there... and it had barely been a couple of _months _since he'd last seen Buffy.

What had _happened _to him?

True, their relationship hadn't exactly been easy by any stretch of the imagination- he'd already accepted the fact that she'd never loved him the way he'd wanted her to, but that was merely the tip of the sodding metaphorical iceberg-, but after everything he'd gone through for her, he'd moved on from her _this _quickly? He'd lost _everything_, and-

He paused, a sudden epiphany striking him.

_He'd lost everything_...

In some ways, it was kind of apt, when he thought about it in that context; he'd been given a chance at a clean slate from his past, away from even the supernatural elements that had so defined him for so long, so it only seemed kind of right that he moved on from Buffy into the bargain.

_Moved on_...

Turning the sentence over in his mind once more, Spike had to admit that it actually didn't seem as scary as it had done earlier.

He might not be solid any more, and he wasn't exactly much use in the current situation, but he was still a part of this strange new world he'd found himself in since he fell into that amulet; it was only right that he'd moved past some of the other things he'd been holding onto from his old life as well.

Walking over to a room with a window, Spike allowed himself a brief smile as he stared out at the vastness of space before him.

He might not know what direction Earth was in relation to him right now- for all he knew he might be looking at a part of the galaxy not even Earth's astronomers knew about-, but what he had to say right now seemed like it would be best said here.

"Goodbye," he said simply, the statement addressed to nobody in particular.

It probably didn't mean much to anyone else- hell, the people he was addressing it to were probably nowhere _close _to being in the direction that he was looking as he said it-, but he felt that it had to be said.

Just as Spike was about to turn back around to continue his guard shift, his eyes widened in horror as there was a sudden burst of white light in the middle of one of the windows, followed by the emergence of two large pyramid-esque ships that he recognised from the files he'd studied in his spare time- reading was one of the few things he _could _do on his own right now, so long as the book stayed fairly flat on its own and he had a decent weight to help it do so- as Goa'uld ha'taks.

_Shit_... he thought to himself, his feet automatically turning around to take him back towards the bridge; he didn't know what he _could _do when he got there, but he had to _try_...

It was only when he got to the bridge that he realised things weren't exactly progressing quite as he'd expected. The bridge still looked like it could use some work- more than one panel was open as people continued to work at the circuits inside them-, but there was no actual sign of them engaging in combat, despite the fact that the ships had been there for at least a couple of minutes by this point...

"One of the motherships is firing at the other," Marks said from where he was sitting at his control console, Daniel looking up from where he was sitting in the command chair to look at the major. "Receiving radio signal."

"Odyssey_, this is Teal'c_," the Jaffa's distinctive voice said a moment later. "_Do you copy_?"

"_Teal'c_?" Spike and Daniel said simultaneously, Daniel looking over at the vampire as he registered Spike's presence (Not that Spike could blame him for not noticing him earlier; he really didn't attract as much attention when he wasn't solid any more) even as he hit the button to activate the radio.

"_Daniel Jackson, Spike, it is good to hear your voices_," Teal'c said, sounding slightly satisfied before he continued. "_Colonel Mitchell is presently on board one of the motherships; I am in the al'kesh, currently under cloak, and have been observing the situation for Colonel Mitchell's safety while he attempts to carry out his current plan. On Colonel Mitchell's behalf, I must request that you beam him aboard the Odyssey immediately; his plan will doubtless shortly be exposed_."

"Uh, yeah," Daniel said, nodding over at Marks with a quick acceptance that even the impulsive Spike had to acknowledge made sense. They might not know what Mitchell's plan was, but given the potentially short amount of time they might have before the two ships before them _stopped _firing at each other, if Teal'c thought that getting Mitchell off the ship was a good idea right now, the archaeologist had evidently decided to trust his judgement.

"Locking on to his locator beacon," Marks replied as he began to rapidly tap other controls on the console in front of him. A moment later, Mitchell appeared at the front of the bridge in a burst of white light, dressed in the grey-and-black uniform of the Lucian Alliance, his hands nonchalantly behind his back as he looked at them.

"Jackson," Mitchell said, walking forward to look at the archaeologist. "What are you doing sitting there?"

"What are you wearing?" Daniel countered, indicating the Lucian Alliance garb Mitchell was wearing.

"Oh," Mitchell said, tugging slightly on the coat as he looked down at himself before looking back at Daniel, "it's a... long story."

"Yeah, great, love to hear it; any chance we could get it _after _we're out of here?" Spike asked, indicating a screen displaying the ha'taks as they continued to exchange fire. "That won't last forever, you know-!"

"Mr... Spike," Marks said- Spike made a mental note to work on getting a better rep among the rest of the staff here; he was liked well enough by SG-1, but he really needed to see about getting the kind of respect Teal'c got despite his lack of 'credentials'-, turning to look pointedly at the intangible vampire, "as much as we would like to leave, we can't _do _anything while the hyperdrive is still-"

"_Daniel_," Sam's voice suddenly said over the radio, "_try it now_."

A nod from Daniel was all Marks needed to input the necessary commands to send the _Odyssey _back into the strange blue 'tunnel' that was hyperspace, leaving Spike exchanging glances with his new teammates as he allowed himself a slight smile.

It hadn't been the smoothest mission he'd ever been on- and he really wouldn't have minded more opportunities to hit things-, but, all in all, that hadn't gone too badly in his book.

* * *

"So, lemme get this straight," Spike asked, as he walked along _Odyssey_'s still-under-repair corridors with Mitchell and Daniel a short while later, the other two once again in their usual uniforms as Mitchell explained his recent actions. "You used some mind-altering chemical to make everyone on the other ha'tak think that you were the head Lucian Alliance guy, and then tricked them into attacking the other ship?"

"Well, actually I could only use the chemical on Tenat- there was only enough of the dose for one person-, but since nobody else on that ship knew what the guy I was posing as was _meant _to look like, I just needed to convince him to get the job done," Mitchell said, smiling slightly at Spike. "Still, neat trick, huh?"

"Tell me about it; disguising yourself's one thing that's never easy to do with magic..." Spike muttered, shaking his head as he reflected on Glory's 'spell' to keep her identity as Ben secret; that had probably been the most successful magical 'disguise' he'd encountered, and given that the two appearances were two different personalities into the bargain it wasn't _that _cool when you got down to it...

"You know," Daniel said, a brief glance at Spike the only sign of his discomfort at the implications of Spike's last comment before he looked back at Mitchell, "you're very lucky that no one else on the bridge of that ship knew what Netan looked like."

"Yeah, it was a gamble," Mitchell replied with a shrug. "But I figured, if I got made, or if the chemical jab on Tenat didn't work after half an hour, I'd take the bridge by force. I had a pissed-off Jaffa waiting to help me out."

Before Spike could ask what use Teal'c would have been on that al'kesh, Sam and Vala walked out of an elevator in front of them.

"Ah, there you are," Vala said, smiling broadly at Mitchell while taking particular care _not _to look at Spike (He tried not to feel offended; even if she did feel... _something_... for him, his present condition wouldn't exactly make it something she'd like to put a lot of thought into given the sheer strangeness of it). "So, what happened? How did you get the Lucian alliance to fire on each other?"

"Oh, you'll love this-" Mitchell began.

"Before you tell us," Sam said, holding up a finger and looking between her teammates, "I got long range communications back online, and sent a message to Earth telling them that we'll be coming home."

"Yeah..." Spike muttered, nodding briefly at Sam even as he exchanged glances with Daniel and Mitchell, his memories of what the group had told him about their currently-shaky-standing with the Alliance making it fairly obvious to him how things between them would turn out now. "Should probably mention that we've almost certainly got those 'Alliance' sods on our backs now along with the sodding Ori...

"I did," Sam replied after a momentary pause, the group exchanging grim glances with each other at the thought.

From what Spike had seen of them, the Lucian Alliance might not be a threat on the same scale as the Ori, but war was war, and having to deal with more than one under any circumstances was _never _going to be a good thing...

And he _still _didn't really know how he felt about Vala yet; even if she _did _feel... _something_... for him, how the sodding hell was he meant to have any kind of relationship with _anyone _when he didn't even have a sodding _body _any more?

_Once_, Spike reflected, glancing upwards in frustration as the group turned around to walk back to wherever they would be the most use in the repair work right now- Spike decided he might as well just resume his old guard duties out of a lack of anything else to keep himself occupied right now-, _just _once_, would it be asking too much for me to have an _easy _relationship_?

There was no easy way to deal with this; Spike just wasn't sure what would be the _best _way...


	22. Post for a Ghost?

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

The subsequent couple of days travel in the _Odyssey _progressed relatively smoothly, even with the obvious gloom that had settled over the group at the thought of the new war with the Lucian Alliance that had just been unwillingly declared.

The crew as a whole were reluctant to push the engines too far until they were certain that everything had been completely tested, so the _Odyssey _was merely maintaining a comfortable cruising speed until they arrived at a planet with a Stargate so that they could get better equipment to carry out the remaining repairs. With Sam, Vala and Mitchell doing what they could to contribute to the repair work- Vala and Mitchell's knowledge might be basic but it was still better than most-, Spike found himself with little else to do the following morning but head off to Daniel's office to try and see how things were progressing for the archaeologist.

"Hey there, Danny-boy," Spike said, poking his head through the door of the archaeologist's room with a casual shrug, his new friend sitting in front of a computer idly studying the information it displayed. "How's tricks?"

"Well, I know _what _I'm doing, I just don't quite know where to go from here," Daniel replied, turning to face Spike as the intangible vampire walked into the room. "It's like... look, you remember what we told you about the Sangraal during your briefings?"

"That weapon thing that Merlin developed to destroy Ascended beings?" Spike responded (A part of him had almost regretted his usual disinclination for much interest in the supernatural elements of his vampiric background; the idea of the mystical Merlin being an alien was something that would have probably made Rupert wear a hole in his glasses, he'd have been rubbing them so much...). "What about it?"

"Well, I've been looking over what we've found out about it so far, but I'm just having trouble finding the common factor," Daniel explained, as he indicated the display currently on his screen, which showed three planets highlighted. "These are the locations of the planets that Arthur and his knights set off to in their quest for the Sangreal. Castiana, Sahal, and Vagonbrei. Now we searched all three and came up empty, so I thought it was a dead end, until I noticed this..."

As Daniel tapped a few buttons on the keyboard, the display changed to focus on the relative positions of the three planets in relation to each other, another tap of a button creating equal-length lines between the planets, as they were displayed in a two-dimensional format on the screen before the archaeologist and the vampire.

"Their coordinates form an equilateral triangle," Daniel continued with a slight smile. "Now, add in the knight's departure point- which we've come to refer to as the 'Camelot' planet-, and you get..."

As he tapped another key on the computer, a fourth point appeared on the screen, causing the display before them to move into a more three-dimensional shape that displayed a wire diagram of a pyramid connecting the four planets.

"A pyramid?" Spike said, looking at the sight before him in surprise. "I'm guessing that's not exactly normal?"

"It's distinctive, anyway," Daniel replied with a nod. "It means _something_; I'm just not sure _what_..."

"Maybe there's something in the pattern?" Spike asked with an uncertain shrug.

Daniel blinked.

"Pardon?" he said, looking at the vampire uncertainly.

"Y'know, maybe it's meant to be a diamond and there's another planet at the bottom point that's what you're looking for?" Spike asked with an uncertain shrug. "Or, y'know, maybe there's something in the middle of the triangle that-"

"The _middle_..." Daniel whispered, his eyes widening as he leaned over and began to rapidly tap at the keys on his computer, a smile on his face as he contemplated the implications of his latest idea.

"What?" Spike asked, looking uncertainly at Daniel. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No... actually, that _might _be it..." Daniel said, looking at Spike with an approving smile at the vampire's sudden insight. "Maybe if I had Sam run all three addresses, we could find a planet that exists at a location where it combines symbols from the addresses of all three of these worlds..."

"What, you mean you stick them all together and work it out from there?" Spike asked, looking uncertainly at the archaeologist. "That's... a bit of a leap, isn't it?"

"If you're anyone but Daniel, yes," a voice said from the door, prompting Daniel and Spike to turn around and look at the door in surprise, Sam Carter casually standing in the door as she looked at her two colleagues with a slight smile. "Trust me, Spike; when it comes to intuitive leaps, Daniel's one of the best people I know."

"OK, so maybe I've made a few correct guesses-" Daniel said awkwardly.

"A few?" Sam repeated, looking at him with a wider smile. "Daniel, aren't you forgetting which of us was the one who figured out how we could use the addresses on the Abydos cartouche to calculate the current location of the planets involved with _no _prior knowledge of astrophysics?"

Spike wasn't sure what Sam meant by that, but judging by the slightly embarrassed expression on Daniel's face it was probably something that had been fairly significant at the time, and he made a mental note to find out more so that he could tease his new friend about it as soon as possible.

"Anyway," he said, deciding that he might as well get their attention back to the more immediately relevant issue at this point- much as he'd like to tease Daniel and/or Sam about this, he could do that later; with a galaxy potentially at stake, they had more important things to worry about right now-, "you think that could work?"

"Putting three planets together to use the Stargate addresses you get from combining those chevrons to find where they hid the Sangraal?" Sam said, shrugging slightly as she looked thoughtfully at the screen. "It's _possible_, I admit; I'd just prefer to take a look at it once we've managed to get the _Odyssey _somewhere where it can be repaired; right now I'd prefer to focus on the more immediate problem of getting back in contact with Earth."

"Fair enough," Spike said with a confirming nod before he shot a brief smile at his two friends. "In the meantime, maybe the two of you could see about catching a movie of something- think I saw something about a DVD library somewhere around here when I was wandering around-; y'know, give yourselves a break while we sort out the fine details?"

With that, he turned around and walked out through the wall of the room, leaving the archaeologist and the astrophysicist to exchange uncertain glances with each other while the vampire chuckled slightly.

He knew that it was a cheap way to go about getting people to stop talking about anything going on with him and Vala, but he couldn't help it; something about the idea of those two getting together really kind of appealed to him...

_Bloody romantic_, he scolded himself, with a mix of frustration and resignation in his thoughts

Why was it that even after over a century in existence, he was _still _'love's bitch'...?

* * *

Later that day, the _Odyssey _finally managed to reach a planet with a Stargate, the crew subsequently dialling Earth and requesting assistance to complete what repairs were left. With the planet being relatively uninhabited although otherwise in good condition, the crew were able to land the ship directly in order to help facilitate the reconstruction efforts around the hull and the engines without worrying about needing spacesuits, leaving SG-1 free to return to Earth and continue to follow up Daniel's latest theory (Spike wondered if he should insist on 'credit' for some of it, but decided it wasn't worth making a big thing about it; he didn't even know if the damn idea would _work_, after all).

As Spike walked through the Stargate and subsequently out of Mitchell's body- and how long would it take for him to _ever _feel comfortable doing that; he still felt like he was wearing something that was a bit too tight when he started out?-, he was surprised to see General Landry standing at the end of the ramp, a pointed glare on the general's face that automatically shifted in his direction as soon as he'd stepped out of his current 'lift'.

It might have been a couple of days since they'd last spoken to the general directly, but he didn't think there'd been anything in their reports on the situation to suggest that something had happened that Landry needed to take a more personal interest in...

"Spike," Landry said, walking over to stand slightly closer to the vampire, his glare now fixed on the other man's eyes in a manner that was somehow intimidating even with Spike's knowledge that Landry couldn't hurt him, "would you care to tell me what the _hell _you are doing ordering _packages _for this address?"

"Huh?" Spike said, looking at the colonel in confusion. "Someone sent me something?"

Landry's glare faded at the obvious confusion on the vampire's face.

"You didn't know?" he said, looking in slight surprise at the vampire. "I thought you'd just gone and ordered something for yourself online when we lost track of you..."

"Well, I didn't; how the bloody hell am I meant to have ordered something anyway?" Spike asked, looking at the colonel in frustration. "Aside from the fact that I don't even know what our mailing address _is _here, in case you didn't notice, I don't exactly have credit cards on me, stealing someone else's wouldn't exactly be practical even if I knew where anyone kept anything, and I spent most of the last few years after the 'net kicked off living in a crypt or on the road; when you're a vampire sticking around somewhere long enough to even _think _about having stuff sent to you by _mail _tends to be a bit stupid..."

He paused for a moment in reflection before he shrugged. "Well, Dru did it once or twice, but she was just nuts and we didn't always get it anyway..."

"OK, putting your past aside and getting back to the more... immediate situation," Daniel put in, shooting a brief glare at Spike before he turned to address Landry once again, "what exactly is the 'package'?"

"All we've been able to determine so far is that it's an apparently normal box; we've no idea what's in it or what it's doing here, unfortunately," Landry replied before he turned to look at Spike. "In your absence- particularly given the circumstances under which you joined us in the first place-, I had the science teams carry out a couple of quick scans on the box just in case we could determine something about it that way, but nothing unusual came up in our analysis of it. The best we can determine is that whatever's in there is giving off some strange kind of energy, but we have no real idea what it is beyond the fact that it's similar to the readings we've detected from the amulet, and nobody's entirely sure about what would happen if we opened it."

"What, you're thinking someone sent Spike something that would make him... go into the light or something?" Mitchell asked.

"We thought about it, but we just didn't know," Landry replied with a grim shrug. "We've been waiting for you to get back so you could have a look at it yourself, Colonel Carter, but so far the only option we've got left is to actually open it..."

"Well, I'll take a look, but given our limited knowledge of... what brought Spike here... opening it could be our only option," Sam said with an uncertain shrug before she looked over at Spike with a slight smile. "Don't worry, though; we'll open it in the sub-basement-"

"The _sub_-basement?" Spike repeated in surprise. "We're already underground; what do you need a _sub_-basement for?"

"We have a room in the lower areas of the base that we sometimes use when experimenting with potentially volatile chemicals," Sam explained with a slightly reassuring smile. "It's lead-sealed and isolated from the rest of the base. Since we're not certain about the contents of the box, we can open it there; anything potentially dangerous inside it should be contained fairly securely..."

"How securely are we talking here?" Spike asked, looking pointedly at Sam.

"We once used the room to contain an explosive blast that would have been powerful enough to level this entire base if it had taken place anywhere else on-site," Sam replied.

Spike could only nod at that.

"Well... go ahead," he said with a brief nod before a thought occurred to him. "Just don't ask me to watch it; some things can get you just by you lookin' at them-"

"Don't make you watch it opening up; understood," Sam said, nodding reassuringly at Spike before she turned

"So," Mitchell asked, looking over at Spike in slight confusion, "with the question of what we're doing with the box, that just leaves the question of who the hell would send post to a ghost?"

The lieutenant colonel paused and held up one hand, a thoughtful expression on his face as he processed what he'd just said, before he groaned in frustration. "I can't believe I just said that..."

"Well... we won't hold it against you if you don't," Vala said, smiling nonchalantly at Mitchell before she looked at Daniel. "So, where do we watch this box being opened?"

* * *

A few minutes later, Spike having been left in a disused office to avoid the possibility of being accidentally exposed to anything, the rest of the team sat in the lab watching as Sam manoeuvred the robotic arms of the sub-basement towards the box.

"Once again, you're _sure _it's safe?" Mitchell asked as he glanced at Sam. "I've heard some of Spike's stories; I'm not exactly keen to let out some kind of... deranged Indian spirit or something like that..."

"The room's secure, Cam; we'll be fine," Sam said, nodding reassuringly at her friend before she turned her attention back to the matter at hand. "OK then; here we go..."

Reaching out with the mechanical arms, she carefully opened the box, which released a brief flash of light that momentarily filled the room before it vanished, leaving SG-1 looking at what seemed to be nothing more than an empty box.

"Huh," Mitchell said, looking over at his team. "Very 'all flash and no substance', wasn't it?"

"Could somebody have attempted to send Spike a spell for some purpose?" Teal'c asked.

"Well... it's _possible_, I suppose," Sam said, even as the slight twitch at the corner of her mouth hinted at her discomfort at the idea of legitimately considering magic as an explanation for something they'd encountered. "The energy readings we got from the box were definitely similar to what we've been detecting from the amulet, but there's still no way to _know _what it was meant to be capable of; we just don't have enough information about magic to figure it out..."

"OK, so if we can't get anything that way, any way we can figure out where the parcel itself came from?" Mitchell asked.

"Not likely," Sam replied with an apologetic shake of her head. "It's a good idea, don't get me wrong, but without a return address on the package, our only clue is the fact that whoever sent this addressed it to the Cheyenne Mountain Facility rather than to the SGC. Whoever sent this might not know where Spike really is, but that doesn't exactly help us work out how anyone with these resources would know he was here in the first place; outside of us, the only person on Earth who knows that Spike's here is Agent Finn, and he didn't strike me as the wizard kind of person..."

"Ah well," Mitchell said, shrugging slightly dismissively. "You win some, you lose some; no harm, no foul, so let's just forget this and move on."

* * *

"_Damnit_!" Lindsey roared, slamming one hand against the wall when the spell he'd cast to check on Spike's status showed no signs that anything had changed.

_Great_... he groaned, slumping down in his desk as he stared at the wall in frustration. _All that effort to get that spell shipped, and the damn thing was a _dud?

How the hell was he meant to convince Spike to go anywhere now? As long as Spike was tied to the amulet, there was no chance of making him go somewhere else on his own, and even with his recent mystical upgrades, he was still reluctant to actually break into a secret military facility, particularly when he didn't know what was so secret about it; if he stumbled into another mess like that 'Initiative' that had been set up in Sunnydale a few years back he'd _really _be screwed...

Right now, unless he could come up with something else, it looked like his plans to undermine Angel's self-confidence had just hit a _serious _snag...

"Back to the drawing-board," he reflected in frustration, pushing his plans for Spike to the side as he turned his attention back to the more immediate issue.

Actually, maybe he could do a better job without Spike; if Angel didn't _know _who was responsible for the 'vigilante vamp stakings' he'd been planning to arrange for Spike, it might make him more frustrated with his current role...


	23. Relationship Reflections

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Some references here to the Buffy/Angel crossover novel "Monster Island" (If you haven't read it, you should; not only do we have a mass team-up of both groups against a demon army, but the main villain is none other than Axtius, the demon father of the tragically-short-lived Francis Allan Doyle)

AN 2: Might be a bit overly emotional in this chapter, but I felt that Spike had some issues he needed to get off his chest and Daniel was the only person available to talk to when he had to come face-to-face with them

The Ghost in the Team

"So... nothing?" Spike asked, looking at Daniel in surprise at the story he'd just heard from his new friend. "All that panic, and the damn box didn't do _anything_?"

"Well, we're assuming that it might have been more obvious what it was meant to do if you'd been the one to open it, but given that there's no way to know what the result would have been, you're essentially right, yes," Daniel said, nodding apologetically at Spike. "We're looking into who might have sent it to you, but without a return address or anything like that on the box itself we're relatively limited in what we could find out; even tracking the package back to the post office that originally sent it might not do much good..."

"Actually, y'know what?" Spike interrupted, a suddenly resolved expression on his face as he looked at his new friend. "Forget it."

Daniel blinked.

"Excuse me?" he said.

"Forget it," Spike said dismissively. "I mean, it didn't do anything, anyone who'd try just sending me something that way probably can't figure out a way to get anything to me _directly_, and given everything else we've got going on here right now-"

"Spike, you're on our team; if this is about you not wanting to be a bother-" Daniel began.

"No, this is just about me not giving a crap about some prats who evidently _don't _know enough about this place to actually do anything to me while I'm here," Spike responded with a dismissive shrug. "They tried to get me, and they blew their best shot, so I'm not going to let myself be bothered about it; they can't try that again, and if they _really _wanted something to happen to me there are easier things they could've done, so since they haven't done them I'm assuming they can't."

Despite his slight curiosity over the still-existent mystery of the source of the package, Daniel couldn't help but acknowledge that Spike had a point; if whoever had sent it didn't know anything detailed about where Spike currently was, they probably weren't able to attempt a more direct but subtle method of attack after this one failed.

"Interesting assessment," he said at last, smiling slightly at his friend.

"Yeah, well, no point worrying about what you can't control, I say," Spike said with a shrug. "Besides, we've got enough to be going on with right now without worrying about people who don't even seem to know where I actually _am _at the moment; save that for when we're _not _at war, I say..."

His sentence finished, he looked curiously at the archaeologist. "Anyway, talking of the current mess, any chance you'll be checking out that idea you had about how to find where Merlin left that weapon thing?"

"Well... we won't be going to the address any time soon, unfortunately," Daniel said with a slightly uncertain shrug. "Given the extent of the damage the _Odyssey _took in the Lucian Alliance's attempted takeover, the repair teams insisted on getting Sam's help to fix it up to make sure that we didn't put too much strain on anything getting back, and Mitchell and Teal'c are going to see if they can find anything else about where that box came from or who might know about your presence here to send it to us in the first place, but until then..."

Daniel shrugged. "As far as I know, your time's yours to do what you like with; with the rest of us occupied like that, it's probably going to take a few days for us to get permission to look into our latest idea about the Sangraal's location."

"Ah," Spike said, raising his eyebrows slightly as he looked at Daniel. "And I should do... _what _with my spare time?"

"Well..." Daniel said, a slight smile on his face that Spike didn't recall the archaeologist giving him before as he looked at the vampire, "there _is _what happened between you and Vala on the _Odyssey _to consider-"

"_That _was nothing," Spike interjected, walking over to glare directly into the archaeologist's face (If he'd been sure he would have remained solid long enough to do so, he would have picked Daniel up by the BDUs to try and better emphasise his point, but as it was he couldn't be sure he could focus long enough to pull that off, so he didn't do it). "She was just... being friendly; it didn't mean anything-"

"Trust me on this; 'friendly' from Vala is flirting, but physical contact like that only happens when she actually _wants _it to happen," Daniel said, looking at Spike with a slight smile. "Look, I've known Vala probably longer than anyone else at Stargate Command- although I admit that we didn't exactly meet under the best circumstances; that's a whole... complicated story that you'd be better off talking to her about if she wants you to know it-, and there's still a line between flirting and physical contact that she doesn't cross on a whim. When you think about the fact that she knows you don't even have a body for her to make contact with in the first place, she'd only do something like that if she wanted to _automatically _do it-"

"I only just got over Buffy; the _last _thing I need is-!" Spike began, stopping himself mid-sentence as he realised what he'd just said.

_Got over Buffy_...

He'd 'gotten over' _Buffy_?

OK, it wasn't like he was totally _un_interested in her any more- he was still as willing to die for her as he'd been in those last few moments back in Sunnydale, and he could still recall the same dedication he'd felt for her in the past-, but when he really stopped to think about his feelings, he'd really been moving past things from the moment he'd gotten his soul back- he might have _wanted _more, but he'd also been in a better position to accept that Buffy wasn't interested in giving him more than what he had already-, but he'd just been so focused on being her _friend _again that what was left of his love for her had become all tangled up in his respect and appreciation of her willingness to get past what he'd done to her... _before_...

"Spike?" Daniel asked, looking uncertainly at the vampire. "What is it?"

"I..." Spike said, whispering slightly from the shock as he looked up at Daniel. "I'm... I'm over her."

"Who?" Daniel asked.

"Buffy," Spike said simply, all thoughts of his past reluctance to talk about this part of his past with SG-1 pushed aside as he looked at his friend; after everything they'd been through together and all the times they'd trusted him to save them, it only seemed fair that he trust them with his own secrets. "She was... well, Captain Cornbread told you about the... group... who shut down the Initiative in Sunnydale, right?"

"He mentioned some... independent demon hunters... he'd encountered while he was stationed there; is that who you're talking about?" Daniel asked uncertainly.

"Bingo," Spike confirmed with a brief nod before he continued. "Anyway, Buffy was... well, in a nutshell, she was the group's leader when it came to fighting; they had this older guy- Rupert Giles, real brainbox; you reminded me of him a bit when I first got here, actually- to give them info on _what _they were fighting, but she was the one who generally took point..."

"And... you were in love with her?" Daniel asked.

"_Obsessively_ in love with her, to put it bluntly," Spike replied with a slightly grim chuckle, before he sighed as he looked reflectively down at his hands. "I was even willing to kill Dru for her- Dru was the vamp who made me; we'd spent most of the last century together before she left me because she thought I'd gone soft after our first meeting with the Sl- with _Buffy_-, but..."

He sighed again, looking uncertainly at his hands as he sat down in a nearby chair, looking reflectively at his hands as he did so before he continued. "Well, I'd spent practically all of my unlife with Dru before I met Buffy- we were pretty much together for the whole of the twentieth century, 'part from a few occasions when we tried some independent stuff-, and then Peaches came back as his soulless self..."

"Uh... 'Peaches'?" Daniel asked uncertainly, confused at Spike's apparent change of topic but willing to wait and see what kind of explanation the vampire gave for his new line of self-reflection.

"That's just what I call him; real name's Angelus, Dru's sire, and he walked out on us after _he _got cursed with a soul about a century back, 'lough he spent a few months with us 'bout five years ago when he briefly lost it again," Spike explained. "Last I saw him, he called himself 'Angel' and ran a detective business in L.A., and..."

His voice trailed off.

"What?" Daniel asked, looking promptingly at Spike.

"Just... something he said to me last time we met," Spike said, looking back at Daniel thoughtfully. "He said that... well, he said that I'd kept on trying to be him ever since I became a vampire- I'd tried to fill his shoes for being ruthless after he got his soul back, Dru was originally involved with him but he suggested she'd turned me as a substitute, and even the damn chip was just my way of getting a soul without actually _getting _a soul-, and... in a nutshell, he spent three _years _involved with Buffy before he had to leave town and I showed up in time to get chipped..."

"Oh," Daniel said, nodding slowly as understanding sank in. "So... you're thinking that...?"

"That I just fell for her because I wanted to be him?" Spike finished for Daniel; that statement was never going to be easy to make, so it was best to get it out of the way before things became awkward. "I mean, I know I loved her- and I'm pretty sure she loved _me_-, but with that whole... 'being-the-new-Angelus' complex he suggested I had... did I actually _love _her-?"

"Spike," Daniel said, his voice cutting through Spike's train of thought and prompting the vampire to turn and look at him. "I'm not saying I know anything about whatever kind of relationship you had with... Buffy... but I do know that, when it comes to love, you can't _make _yourself feel something that isn't there. Back when I first went through the Stargate, I was married to a native of Abydos- the first planet we visited through the 'gate- in a local ceremony-"

"You were _married_?" Spike said, his own internal reflection pushed aside in favour of this latest news as he grinned broadly at Daniel. "How come you haven't mentioned it before?"

"My wife was taken as a host for a Goa'uld and was killed seven years ago when the Goa'uld controlling her tried to kill me," Daniel replied.

"Oh," Spike said, making a mental note to avoid bringing that particular topic up any time soon- if it was hard enough for people to kill the vamp version of someone they'd known, it must _really _suck to kill someone controlled by a Goa'uld; from what he'd read about the things, at least with a Goa'uld there was a _chance _you could get the original person back- before he returned his direct attention to Daniel. "And you mentioned that because...?"

"Because," Daniel said as he looked back at Spike, "if I learned anything from that experience, it's that you can't _make _yourself fall in love with someone. When Sha're initially tried to... well, _give _herself to me... I turned her down because I didn't want her to just offer herself to me because she thought I was a... messenger of the gods or anything like that... and even after I learned that we'd been married in an Abydonian ceremony, I only stayed because I thought we had the _potential _for something to develop rather than because I... well..."

"Expected any marital bonuses?" Spike finished for his friend, a slightly teasing smile on his face.

"If you want to put it that way," Daniel said, a brief scowl on his face at Spike's choice of words before he continued. "My point is, my marriage to Sha're _contributed _to why I decided to stay, but it wasn't the _only _reason I stayed; I spent some time with her after the rest of the original team had left, sharing dinner with her, learning about her as a person..."

"It was good, huh?" Spike said, the same teasing smile on his face.

"Until Apophis came, anyway," Daniel said, nodding briefly at Spike as the faint smile that had crossed his face as he remembered Sha're faded. "Then... well, after that Sha're spent three years under the control of a Goa'uld, and then I had to watch her die when Teal'c shot her to stop her body being used to kill _me_..."

He paused for a moment, looking ahead of himself at nothing in particular, before he spoke again. "It took a long time to get over what had happened... it took a few months for things between me and Teal'c to get even _remotely _back to normal... but, even after all that, the thing that hurt the most... was the day I realised that it didn't hurt any more. I looked at my photo of Sha're one day- I don't think there was any particular reason; I was just looking at it-, thinking about our life together, and I realised..."

He shrugged slightly as he looked at Spike. "Thinking about her didn't hurt. I still _missed _her, but the thought of her didn't make _hurt _like it had before... and... well, for a while, I thought that it meant I was... _losing _everything she'd meant to me... that I'd dismiss everything we'd ever shared because it wasn't here any more, or because I'd found someone else that I could love the same way I'd loved her..."

"And then?" Spike asked, looking curiously at his friend (Seriously, he'd never have expected an archaeologist to have _this _kind of romantic streak; he'd never been one for hard research when he was alive, and most of the real brainboxes he'd spent time with since consisted of Rupert or Dalton, who weren't exactly the best examples of emotional availability to start with).

"Then..." Daniel said, pausing for a moment to smile at the thought before he looked back at Spike. "I realised that, just because we move on from the people we love, doesn't mean we didn't love them. If you loved Drusilla and Buffy when you were with them, then you loved them then, but just because you feel... _something _for Vala doesn't mean you have to completely forget anything you felt for them in the past."

"I get that, it's just... well, I'm not _used _to this kind of-" Spike began, before a sudden knocking on the door drew their attention.

"Uh... come in?" Daniel said, looking at the door in confusion as it opened, Vala walking in with a slightly uncertain smile on her face, although the uncertainty faded as she looked at Spike.

"Oh, you _are _here," she said, smiling in relief as she looked at the vampire before she glanced at the archaeologist, a slightly uncertain smile on her face as though she wasn't entirely sure what to say to him. "Uh... Daniel, as much as I'd like the chance to talk with you about things, I have some more... immediate business to discuss with Spike...?"

"Fair enough," Daniel said, turning around to give Spike a slightly amused smile before he turned back to Vala, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the amulet as he did so. "You'd better have this; I... might be heading home soon, and there's point drawing Spike away if you have to talk to him."

"Thanks," Vala said, slipping the amulet into her pocket as Daniel walked out of the room, leaving her and Spike alone in the room.

"So..." Spike said after a moment's silence, smiling slightly at her. "How's things?"

"Oh, pretty quiet; yourself?" Vala responded, shrugging slightly as she leant against the door, not-so-subtly turning the lock to ensure their privacy.

"The same," Spike said with a similar shrug. "Not much else to do here, after all; just hang around and haunt a few places, maybe make a few spooky moans when I'm bored..."

"Really?" Vala asked, an amused smile on her face at the thought of the scenario Spike had suggested. "Who did you do that to?"

"Well... nobody at the moment, really; I've _thought _about it but the right person to do it to never came up..." Spike said, looking down at his feet in embarrassment. "I mean, I'm not exactly the kind of person who'd normally be employed here in the first place; I don't want to make-"

"Do you want to... do something later?" Vala asked suddenly, her eyes widening in surprise even as she said it, as though she hadn't realised she was asking it.

"What?" Spike asked, looking at Vala in surprise; even after everything he and Daniel had been discussing earlier, he hadn't expected his new friend to just come up with something like that this suddenly.

"Well..." Vala said, looking more uncomfortable than Spike had ever seen his new teammate since his arrival- with the obvious exception of that time when she'd lost her memory and had thought she recognised him without knowing how-, looking at him with a slightly shy smile. "I know it's not much, but... well, I've been picking up a few DVDs lately- sneaking a couple of orders in on that 'Internet' they have here; fascinating bit of work-, and I... wondered if you'd like to watch a couple with me?"

Spike wasn't sure what was the bigger surprise; that Vala had proposed something so normal for something that could only be called a 'date'- even if his options in his current state were limited due to his current condition-, or just the fact that she was asking _him _for a date in the first place.

"You... well, you sure about this?" he asked, raising a curious eyebrow as he looked back at her, trying to appear neutral. "I mean, I'm not exactly..."

"Solid?" Vala finished for him, that same slight smile back on her face that Spike was more used to seeing. "Well, maybe not, but what does that matter; you're still... _you_, after all..."

After a moment's awkward silence as the two stared at each other, Vala sighed.

"And... well, I like you, OK?" she said, looking slightly awkwardly at him. "I don't know _what _it is- no offence, but I never saw a man who technically doesn't even have his own _body _as being particularly high on my list-, but... well, you definitely have an interesting sense of humour, and you've _really _been helping out since you came here... and I still don't know myself what I'm... expecting... here..."

"Hey, I wasn't exactly expecting this either; I've spent the last _three years _in love with the same woman, and I was in my last relationship for over a century, I don't exactly do this kind of thing on a _whim_..." Spike began, only to trail off as he looked at her, her long dark hair and firm stance belied by the almost vulnerable look in her eyes as she stared back at him, her expression so suddenly fragile that Spike found himself trailing off as he tried to think about what he was going to say next.

"Look," he said at last, looking slightly awkwardly at Vala, his hands randomly gesturing between himself and his new teammate, "If it helps, I'm not saying I'm... _expecting _anything from this- I don't even have a sodding _body _right now; trying to do _anything _to or with me... in _that _sense... would probably be pointless-, but, if you're interested in... well, in a date at least..."

He shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant about it; he hadn't exactly been _nervous _even when he'd told Buffy that he loved her, but that had been because he'd actually been pretty sure back then that he'd get a big fat 'no' from her (_He _hadn't even been entirely comfortable with his original revelation about his feelings; he hadn't exactly expected her to be wild about them either). "Look, I'd like to stress from the beginning that I just got out of a _really _serious- well, sort of; I'm not sure if she was really as serious about it as _I _was- relationship, so I'm really not sure what I'll be like in... something like this... but... well, if you're asking, I wouldn't say no to... getting to know you better?"

After another brief silence as Vala turned over what Spike had just said in her mind, she smiled slightly at him.

"I can work with that," she said at last, her own eyes lowering slightly as she looked at him. "To be honest, I'm... in a bit of a tricky situation relationship-wise right now myself; I got married while I was in the Ori galaxy, and he _is _a good man himself, but... well, he's very devoted to the Book of Origin, and he's still on the other side of this war..."

"Ah," Spike said, a couple of sarcastic quips crossing his mind only to be automatically discarded as far too inappropriate under the circumstances, leaving him with nothing to do but look sympathetically at her. "Sorry 'bout that."

"It's all right," Vala said, shrugging slightly as she smiled back at him, an awkward silence once again settling on the room in the aftermath of Vala's latest revelation before Spike broke it.

"Eh, look at this way; we may be emotionally complicated messes, but at least this way we've got company in our wackiness," he said, smiling briefly at her. "So, regarding those DVDs you mentioned..."

"Yes?" Vala asked.

"Just don't make it anything with Dracula- actually, pretty much _anything _with vampires in it is off; they're all just stupid once you know what we're really like-, and we're good," he concluded, smiling reassuringly at her.

After so long going out drinking on his dates, it might be interesting to see the appeal of a 'quiet night in' while watching the box _with _someone, rather than always doing it yourself...

"Excellent," Vala said, smiling back at him as she indicated the door. "Well, I'm getting everything set up in one of the other offices; shall we get those films started?"

As Spike walked out of the office after Vala, he couldn't help but smile slightly at the thought of what was coming up.

It wasn't going to be a particularly conventional relationship- and they definitely had quite a few not-insignificant issues to get past, but it wasn't like either of his last two had been that normal either; it would have almost been stranger if he _had _had a normal relationship.

* * *

AN 3: Well, there you have it; Spike and Vala have taken the first steps towards an actual 'relationship', and we'll see a bit more of that in the next chapter before getting on to the search for the Sangraal once again...


	24. New Beginnings

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: This one begins a few days after the last chapter; partly a filler and partly a continuation of the main plot, as the quest for the Sangraal resumes in earnest...

The Ghost in the Team

"You're _kidding_?" Vala said, looking at Spike with a broad smile as she took in what he'd just said.

"Would I kid about that?" Spike asked, smirking at the woman, the two of them casually sitting in a disused room of the SGC as Vala picked away at some of the food she'd brought to the room (Spike didn't eat, obviously, but he had assured her that he didn't feel jealous or anything when confronted with the reminder that she could). "Trust me, when you've lived as long as I have, you stop making stuff up... well, unless you _have _to, of course."

"But you actually _met _your country's queen?" Vala asked, her eyebrows raised slightly incredulously.

"Well, saw her while I was planning my latest snack, anyway; you know how it is, you're hanging around at those upper-class shindigs, and you never know _who's _going to turn up..." Spike trailed, off, shrugging slightly as he reminded himself that Vala wouldn't actually know those things went on Earth even as the general gist of his story was easy enough to understand.

"So... what did you do?" Vala asked.

"Did what any self-respecting British vampire would do; hightailed out of there!" Spike replied, a serious stare on his face before it split into a smile. "Hey, I might be dead- even if I wasn't as dead as I am now-, but I'm still British; I wasn't about to bite the bloody Queen!"

"Interesting philosophy," Vala said with a slight smile. "Qetesh wasn't that subtle when she was in me; she might not have had much compared to some of the Goa'uld the SGC had encountered before I met them, but she knew how to use it."

"Such as?" Spike asked; he'd read a bit about some of the Goa'uld the SGC had encountered when he'd been able to find someone to go over the files with him- Daniel and Teal'c were generally the best people for help in that regard, although Teal'c was more often able to give him the facts about the bad guys while Daniel included some stuff about who they'd been in the original myths-, but information from the horse's mouth like this was something he wasn't going to pass up.

"Oh, waged the occasional war against Ba'al- Qetesh actually managed to defeat a significantly-sized army of his once-, outwitted a few minor Goa'uld in her own little scams- I'm never sure if she picked that up from me or was like that already-, and generally effectively controlled her little portion of the universe without making it boring or stamping on _too _many peoples' metaphorical fingers..."

"In other words, stay low but have fun doing it?" Spike said with a slight smile.

"Essentially, yes," Vala replied with a nod. "I didn't do it as much after Qetesh got extracted from me, of course- it was a bit harder to trick the Goa'uld when they would be able to sense that I didn't have Qetesh controlling me any more; they'd probably have been _really _angry at the idea of a _human _trying to beat them-, but it was still a wild ride; one of the few things I _like _about my memories of back then."

"Eh, I know what you mean; had my share of wild rides back when I was evil," Spike said with a smile; he might not be about to share stories of the children he'd killed, but that still left some interesting ones open for him to talk about. "Heard of Dracula?"

"The book?" Vala asked, looking at him curiously. "I went onto that... Internet... thing to read a bit about it- someone mentioned it when I was asking for more information about vampires- and..."

Her voice trailed off as she thought about what she was talking about. "Hold on, you're saying that there's an _actual _vampire called Dracula?"

"Stirred up a riot against him after he tried to kill my girl and destroyed my copy of the book when we ran into each other a short bit after it was published," Spike said, smiling briefly at her before he sighed. "Bugger _still _owes me eleven pounds for the damn thing..."

"He's _alive_?" Vala said, looking incredulously at Spike. "But... he died at the end of the book!"

"The sod's made a whole bunch of deals with gypsies- nobody's entirely sure _what _he gave them in return- which make him pretty much unkillable; nobody's worked out a way to put him out of commission for good yet," Spike replied with a slight sigh. "I knew a guy who trapped him in a statue once, and I even saw him crash-land while piloting a plane once, but he _still _keeps on coming back; best anyone can really do against him is put him down long enough to get away so that he can't come back until some time later..."

"Ah," Vala said, nodding slightly in the manner that Spike had come to recognise as her 'I-kind-of-get-what-you're-saying-even-if-I-don't-understand-the-specifics'-nod (Although he acknowledged that he probably had a similar expression when she started talking about Goa'uld science) before looking slightly curiously at him. "By the way... 'your girl'?"

"Drusilla," Spike said as an explanation, briefly contemplating avoidance before discarding that thought as quickly as it had crossed his mind; he'd already mentioned her in passing, but if he was going to get anywhere with... this... he had to be honest. "She was... well, she was the vamp who turned me, and a major driving force in most of the things I did from that point onwards; spent the next century or so with her- split up a few times to do our own things, but we always got back together in the end-, but things kind of... petered out a few years back; she disagreed with some stuff I'd done recently, I was in a bit of a mood about stuff _she'd _done recently, there was a whole thing involving the _next _person I'd fall for that just gets _way _too complicated..."

"Ah," Vala said, looking at him with an ambiguous expression on her face that could have meant anything before she assumed a more curious appearance. "So... you essentially dated your vampire mother?"

"It's not _exactly _like that..." Spike began, looking awkwardly at Vala. "I mean, she was a bit too 'off' to really be any kind of parental figure to me- spent most of her time out of her mind; she'd been driven mad before she was turned so that her sire's torment of her mortal self could last forever-, so I got most of my vampire training from _her _sire; she was more of an equal-"

"_Spike_," Vala said, smiling at him with a pointed yet reassuring stare as she looked at him. "You don't need to defend yourself to me; after some of the worlds I've seen when I was Qetesh- you'd really be amazed at what some societies out there encourage or condone-, I'm not going to criticise a bit of somewhat-strange incest."

Despite the slight wince at Vala's choice of phrase, Spike nevertheless smiled gratefully at her.

"Thanks," he said, evidently appreciative of her willingness to let that particular part of his past slide.

"No problem," Vala replied, before she looked at him more curiously. "So... what _happened _to Drusilla anyway?"

"Left me for a chaos demon- whole mess of slime and antlers- because she thought I was too 'human' for her after some of the stuff I'd done recently," Spike said, sighing slightly at the memory. "Moved past it since then, of course- you can't do some of the things I've done without knowing that you _couldn't _do them if you were a 'proper' vampire-, but it doesn't make it any easier hearing it the first time..."

"Well, that's parents the universe over for you, isn't it; if you're not _exactly _what they wanted of you, they leave you feeling like you've let them down," Vala said with a shrug. "My stepmother was always trying to control me when I was growing up, and my father was only there now and again; he was absent for the first three years of my life when he ran the black market in the Nylus sector, and he only came back when his latest scheme went wrong and he needed somewhere to hide."

"Sounds like a charmer," Spike said with a brief shrug.

"Well, he wasn't _always _that bad- he always told me stories about what he'd seen and done, although that might have been because I wouldn't let him sleep up until he had-, but..." Vala began, before she trailed off as she looked uncertainly at Spike, the somewhat conflicted expression on her case making her thoughts clear.

"You don't exactly like him because he was never there for you, but what with him being your dad and all, you just... can't resist the urge to overlook that," Spike finished for her.

"Well... pretty much," Vala replied, nodding briefly back at Spike. "It's not that I'd _automatically _forgive him, but..."

Vala's voice trailed off as she looked upwards, sighing slightly as she tried to find the words to define what Spike could tell was a complicated relationship, before she finally shook her head. "I just... _want _to care about him for the good memories rather than hate him for the bad ones, you know?"

"Yeah," Spike said, looking sympathetically back at her before he finally spoke. "I killed my mum."

Noting Vala's suddenly stunned expression, he automatically began to elaborate. "Well, actually, I'd already killed her- it was shortly after I'd been turned by Dru; Mum was dying of TB and I thought I'd be able to save her-, but then the demon her went and tried to shag me or kill me- taking our old relationship to the extreme; we'd always been close back when we were both alive-, and..."

He shrugged. "Well, I killed her."

"Oh," Vala said, a slightly relieved smile on her face- Spike decided not to think too much about that; _anyone _would have been shocked at the idea of someone being capable of killing their parents- as she smiled at him. "Well... it was just the _demon_ you that killed her, wasn't it? It might be based on you as far as its memory goes, but it's not like it was actually_ you_ you..."

"Told myself that when I was dealing with what I'd done to her- it wasn't my mum I'd killed, it was whatever was left after what... had happened to her-, but it doesn't mean it sucks any less; hell, I repressed the damn memory of the whole thing after it happened because it was too difficult to deal with, and I was _evil _at the time," Spike muttered sullenly. "Whole damn thing got used against me by the First a few months back; managed to get past it so it can't try that trick again, but..."

He shook his head grimly. "Almost better when I thought I'd just left her after I was turned..."

"Hey," Vala said, reaching over to place a hand near his shoulder, in a gesture that would have touched her vampire 'friend'- she still wasn't sure if applying the term 'boyfriend' was accurate in this case given the limitations on their relationship due to Spike's current physical status, but she was definitely more interested in him than she'd been in any man since Daniel or Tomin- if he had possessed a physical body. "Look at it this way; even when you were evil, you tried to help your mother. That's..."

She smiled. "It's kind of sweet, really."

"'Sweet'?" Spike repeated, looking back at her with a wince. "You're calling me 'sweet'? Demon me left a trail of corpses in Europe that was only surpassed by Angelus, and now I'm 'sweet'-?"

Any thoughts of what he might have said if he had continued speaking were cut off when Vala suddenly opened her currently casual shirt to give Spike a more-than-brief glimpse of her chest, the sultry smile accompanying the gesture enough to make Spike's eyes widen in surprise.

It wasn't like he hadn't seen this kind of thing before, but the fact that Vala did this purely for _his _enjoyment, knowing that she wouldn't get _anything _out of it herself...

The sound of knocking on the door prompted Vala to quickly do her top back up as she and Spike quickly assumed a more professionally casual appearance.

"Come in," Vala said, she and Spike sitting casually on the sofa as she picked at the last of her food as Mitchell walked in.

"Good; you're both here," he said, nodding at the two of them with a nonchalant manner that avoided any implication that he might know why the two of them were together. Given the somewhat ambiguous nature of Spike and Vala's relationship- as members of an official team any relationship between them should be discouraged, but neither of them were actually members of the military and it was all but impossible to hurt Spike-, SG-1 were operating on a 'don't ask don't tell' policy for their friends; so long as nobody explicitly _asked _if Spike and Vala were involved, and so long as the two avoided anything that might give their relationship away, they were allowed to do what they wanted in their spare time. "We're ready to head to that address Jackson and Sam found; get ready to suit up... or just show up, for those of us who can't change."

Spike didn't bother responding to Mitchell's teasing jab about his coat; the thought of what was coming up was far too exciting for him.

He was about to participate in a quest for the sodding _Holy Grail_...

OK, so it wasn't the _actual _'cup of Christ'- even if a part of him was fairly sure that thing was real; why would crucifixes hurt so much if the guy who'd made them holy didn't exist?-, but hey; given that the damn thing was going to help them save the universe, did it matter if it was a holy relic or just really cool alien technology?

* * *

"So..." Spike asked, looking uncertainly at the group as they walked towards the small, medieval-looking town nearest to the Stargate, "this thing can... _kill _these 'Ascended' you're dealing with?"

Even if the fight with the First was behind him, a part of him had to wonder if this thing they were looking for would have been capable of 'killing' the First as well as these 'Ori' buggers; he might not _like _science himself, but there was something amusing about the idea of anything having progressed to a point where they could take out the First Evil itself...

"Well, it's not exactly 'killing'; a more accurate term from what we've been able to translate suggests that 'negating' would be a better description," Sam explained, the team walking along with their weapons ready- without actually being raised- for use if the situation called for it. "From what we've been able to translate, the device would release energy into the dimension inhabited by the Ascended on a frequency that would oppose the energy that comprises their 'structure', essentially negating them like positive and negative charges cancelling each other out..."

"Gotcha; let's just... leave it at that, eh?" Spike said, nodding slightly at Sam before he looked over at the others with a slight smile. "Still, hey; chance to meet Merlin? What's _not _to like about this concept?"

"So he _is _real?" Daniel asked, looking over at Spike. "As in, you've encountered reference to Merlin from a... supernatural... perspective?"

"Uh... no, actually," Spike said, feeling embarrassed for the first time at his own comparative ignorance of the more mystical elements of his background as he noted the slightly crestfallen expression on his friend's face. "I mean, I'm sure there _is _one, I just never read anything about him; the supernatural side of things was never that interesting to me..."

"OK, we'll just have to save that for later; right now, we're here," Mitchell said, looking over at Spike with a slightly pointed stare as they walked through what appeared to be the village's main gates into a town that reminded Spike of various medieval-themed movies he'd seen, the people dressed in casual jerkins and linens as they looked uncertainly at the new arrivals.

"The culture and level of technology looks similar to what we found on the Camelot planet," Daniel commented, after a few moments' of silence as the team walked into the village.

"Yeah, I'm going to assume that's a good thing," Mitchell said, looking grimly at the people around him as he thought for a moment before continuing. "I think some of these folks have figured out we're not from around here."

"Take it that means we're just going for the direct approach, huh?" Spike said, looking uncertainly over at Mitchell; he might not be able to be hurt himself, but that didn't stop him worrying about the rest (And how strange was it to feel this kind of _genuine _concern about other people; even when he'd been with the Scoobies he'd mainly tolerated most of them rather than actually _liking _them...).

"It's as good a plan as any," Mitchell said with a brief shrug, as he turned to address the people gathered before him. "Hi, all. We've come here looking for the Sangraal; it's a little red thing about so big..."

Mitchell's voice trailed off as the villagers exchanged glances with each other, their expressions essentially unreadable even if the implications weren't entirely encouraging, until one of them, dressed in a simple green sleeveless shirt over a yellow long-sleeved shirt and identically coloured trousers, broke the silence.

"It has been many generations since anyone has come in search of the Sangraal," the villager said, looking pointedly at the six people in front of him, "and now you're the second group of adventurers in less than a week to take up the quest."

"Second?" Spike said, looking at the man with a new intensity; he might be new, but he doubted anyone else going after something as powerful as the Sangraal was a good thing.

"A number of Jaffa passed through here three days ago," the villager explained, walking around from behind the cart where he'd been standing to face them directly.

"Were they accompanied by anyone?" Sam asked.

"Yes," the villager confirmed. "They were led by a man who clearly commanded their fear and respect."

"Ba'al has been here," Teal'c commented, his tone grim at the thought (Not that Spike could blame him; based on Vala's stories and what he'd read in the files, Ba'al was _not _the type of guy you wanted to run into).

"And he's got a three-day head start on us..." Daniel muttered grimly.

"If you truly seek the Sangraal," the villager said- most likely concluding that whatever they were discussing amongst themselves wasn't his business-, indicating a building on the opposite side of the square they were currently standing in, "you must consult with the Parchment of Virtues in the village library; it will prepare you for the journey to come."

"Thanks," Mitchell said, nodding briefly at him before they turned around to walk in the direction of the building that had just been pointed out to them.

"But I should warn you," the villager added, prompting the group to turn around and face him once again, "no one has ever returned from the Quest alive; if you value your lives, you would do well to reconsider."

"Nice warning, but since we didn't come here after all the effort it took to find your address just to quit, thanks but no thanks," Spike said, nodding briefly at the man before him, ignoring the fact that he hadn't actually been on the team for a particularly long time before they found the address; his _friends_ had spent that time finding out where to go, and that was enough for him.

With Spike having essentially spoken for all of them, the team resumed their walk towards the library, the old wooden door easily opening to reveal a poorly-lit interior, roles of parchment scattered all over the shelves, as well as some piles of books on a table and some benches.

"Hello?" Vala asked, looking uncertainly around the building as the assorted team took up positions to study the parchments before them.

"So... how do we do this?" Mitchell asked at last, looking uncertainly at Daniel. "I'm not exactly sure these things use an organisational system we'd be familiar with..."

"Well," Daniel said uncertainly as he looked over the parchments before him, "I suppose we could start by looking for any and all materials related to the Sangraal..."

"Or you could simply ask me," another voice said, the small team glancing up a low stairway to see an old man with a neat, short white beard standing on a small stone staircase behind the door, dressed in a long black robe with a brown coat over it and a rolled-up parchment in his right hand. "I am Osric, keeper of the village archives."

"Hello," Sam replied, nodding uncertainly at the old man before them. "We're looking for something called the Parchment of Virtues."

"Ah," Osric said, smiling slightly as he walked slowly down the stairs, tossing the parchment in his hands off to the side without ever looking directly at the new arrivals, "another band of stalwart heroes come to tempt fate in the hopes of claiming the legendary prize."

"What do you know of the Sangraal?" Teal'c asked, evidently deciding to get right down to business.

"Only what I have heard from legend," Osric replied, as he leaned against a small ladder and pointed at the door behind them. "That it is located in a cave beyond the outlying forest... but that the journey there is fraught with peril."

"Ages ago," he continued, as he climbed slowly up the ladder to remove a long wooden box from a shelf before passing it to Sam, "Morgan Le Fay enchanted the area with a terrible curse, and since then it has claimed countless lives."

"We... try not to think too much about curses..." Vala began, even as she and the rest of SG-1 couldn't help but look at Spike in recollection of some of the stories he'd told them about curses he'd seen or personally experienced.

"Neither did Phaedra, the cobbler's wife," Osric interjected, as he took the box back and opened it, placing the parchment it contained- a small piece of paper rolled around two long, thin pieces of wood- on the table before them, displaying the clearly Ancient writing on it. "Several weeks ago, she set off in search of her son who had strayed too far from the village. Neither have been seen nor heard from since."

"This parchment," he continued, indicating the paper that was now spread out on the table before him, "was purportedly left behind by Morgan herself, as a guide for knights of noble spirit, since it is said that only the most virtuous will succeed in claiming the Sangraal."

"'_Only those of virtue true may win the prize concealed beyond the reach of the flawed and tainted_," Daniel said, having begun to study the parchment before them, covered in some writing that Spike thought he recognised as what his new friends had identified as Ancient. "_The Sangraal shall instead belong to he who speaks the guardian's name_'... guardian's name?"

"They say that the Sangraal is protected by the most powerful of mythical beasts," Osric responded. "A dragon."

"Dragon?" Daniel repeated uncertainly (Spike wasn't sure if he should be grateful that he hadn't mentioned his encounter with dragons during that mess with that bloody emperor Qin and that 'Jhiera' bird last year; given that they'd only shown up in _exceptional _circumstances he didn't think talking about them would accomplish much).

"You doubt the legend?" Osric asked, as he looked slightly sceptically at the group around him.

"Well," Sam put in, trying to sound diplomatic, "I'm sure the Sangraal is protected by something very powerful, but I don't think it's an _actual _dragon."

"Believe what you will," Osric said, chuckling slightly as he spoke, clearly amused at their scepticism. "With luck you may have the opportunity to prove the truth for yourselves."

"'_Prudence, wisdom, charity, kindness, and faith_'," Daniel said, still reading from the parchment before them with undisguised curiosity. "'_Let these be your guide on this perilous quest_'..."

His confused expression as he looked up after he had finished speaking made it clear that he had nothing else to contribute; evidently he'd read everything relevant that the parchment had to offer.

"Is there... anything else?" Mitchell asked, looking uncertainly at Osric.

"No," Osric replied, as he rolled the parchment back up and returned it to the box. "All Morgan left behind was this parchment... and the map."

"Uh... there's a map?" Sam asked.

"Yes," Osric replied, smiling slightly at them.

"May we see it?" Teal'c asked (Spike had to give the guy points; he had a _definite _talent for asking the obvious questions).

"No!" Osric replied, looking back at Teal'c with an indignant tone.

"Why not?" Sam asked

"I showed it to the last group of adventurers who came in search of the Sangraal," Osric replied, looking at the group with a surprising amount of frustration considering his earlier genial attitude, "and they rewarded my trust by trying to take it!"

"Yeah, we, uh, know the guy that runs that operation," Mitchell said, a slightly apologetic tone in his voice even as he looked reassuringly at the old man. "We're not like him."

"Ah ha, well, I'm sorry," Osric said, waving his hands dismissively before he picked up the box and began to walk back up the staircase that he'd come down originally. "It is not for public view."

"Hey!" Vala yelled after him as he turned the corner at the top of the small flight of stairs. "We wouldn't dream of trying to steal it!"

As Osric disappeared around a corner, laughing in a slightly hoarse manner that made Spike uncomfortable, the intangible vampire thrust his fist into the nearest wall in frustration; if he couldn't damage anything, it at least made him _feel _better.

They came all this way, only to be thwarted because the group who came before them had left a _really _bad impression...

It was just like what Angel had once said (He might not like the poof but he'd made some valid points); sometimes, being the good guy was a _lot _harder than being the bad guy...


	25. The Quest Begins

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

"We have to steal it!" Vala said as they sat around a table in the village tavern a short while later, her tone a simple straightforward one that Spike made a mental note to ask her to use later; there was something nice about being with someone that... decisive... about stuff.

"We are not stealing the map!" Sam protested, looking indignantly at Vala.

"Nightfall," Vala elaborated, as though Sam hadn't spoken. "We send in Spike, he finds the map-"

"I am _not _examining all those sodding parchments until I find the right one," Spike protested, looking indignantly over at Vala. "Just because I can't sleep in this state doesn't mean I can't get _tired_, and looking over all that stuff would be a strain even if it didn't take a lot of effort for me just to be able to read it in the first sodding place!"

"Hold on; 'effort'?" Mitchell repeated, looking at Spike in slight surprise. "If we were asking you to take everything out and read it that way, yeah, but what's so hard about just sticking your head in the shelves- ah, actually, forget I asked that; you'd never be able to read _anything _up that close..."

"Add in the fact that we don't even know what the map looks like or if there are other maps in the library apart from the one we're looking for, and I think it's safe to say that trying to steal it wouldn't work," Daniel said, shaking his head slightly as he continued to chew at some of the peanuts- or the local equivalent of peanuts- that had been on the table when they'd arrived. "Maybe if I can just talk to Osric and convince him that our cause is virtuous..."

"Are you certain that I cannot tempt you with a final meal?" a female barkeep suddenly asked, interrupting the group's discussion as she walked up to their table and began to set metal cups down on the table around them (Spike made a mental note to subtly switch glasses with his teammates when he got the chance; no point drawing attention to the fact that he was a 'ghost' by being the only one here who didn't drink anything, particularly when he didn't know how anyone here would react).

"What is it with this town and the no-can-do attitude?" Mitchell asked, tossing a nut he'd been toying with onto the table in frustration. "Every time we turn around, someone's trying to write us off or scare us away!"

"I apologise," the barkeep said with a slightly placating tone as she moved around Mitchell to hand a glass to Teal'c. "I should have said a final meal before you set off on your journey."

"_That's_ more like it..." Spike said, nodding at the woman in approval.

"Although," the barkeep added, her tray held in front of her as she stood at the end of the team's table to better address them, "it need be said in the many thousands of years that adventurers have been seeking the Sangreal, not one has succeeded."

Before Spike could think more about that particular unpleasant revelation, the faint sound of a disturbance outside prompted Mitchell and Teal'c to get up and walk over to a nearby window to examine the noise. Walking over to join them, Spike leant past the colonel and the Jaffa to take a look, but the sight of men in grey armour shoving the general population around amid pleas for an explanation was all the answer he needed for what was going on even before the man they'd spoken to earlier was hit in the stomach with a staff just for asking what was happening.

"We are soldiers of the Ori," one of the soldiers proclaimed after shooting down one of the group who had just attempted to attack them, "and we have taken this village as part of their holy crusade, to rid this galaxy of evil. Cooperate and you won't be harmed."

As the soldier turned to address other members of his group, Spike had to turn away and focus on his friends; the last thing he wanted to do right now was to make things more difficult for his friends by trying to attack these bastards, no matter how much he thought they were being stupid (If he wouldn't listen to the Anointed One even when the kid was of his bloodline he _definitely _wasn't going to put up with whatever crap these guys had).

"Who are these men?" the barkeep asked, walking up to stand beside Mitchell as she looked out of the window (Spike moving back to avoid the chance that she'd walk through him and realise what he was).

"Well, that is a long story," Mitchell said, he and Teal'c stepping back from the window as he turned to look at the woman. "Look, I know you have no reason to trust us any more than you do those guys..."

"I have not seen you shoot anyone," the barkeep replied, looking back at Mitchell with a casual manner.

"That's an excellent point," Mitchell said, smiling briefly at the woman before he leaned over and placed a hand on her shoulder. "We're gonna need your help."

"What do you need?" the woman asked.

"First priority is something we can wear outside that doesn't show anyone that we're not from around here," Mitchell said, before he turned to look at Spike. "Right now, you're our best chance at getting on-site intel; sneak around a bit, see if you can find anything in the village we can use to turn the tables on the guys, but otherwise your main priority is getting out of here."

"Hold on; getting _out _of here?" Spike repeated, his eyes narrowing suddenly as he glared at Mitchell. "If you're ordering me to _leave _you-!"

"I'm _ordering _you to stay out of sight so that there's a chance that _one _of us can report back to Stargate Command if things get ugly," Mitchell said, looking grimly at the intangible vampire. "We set up the usual emergency contact set-up near the gate, so as long as you're careful you should be able to send the message back to base if we can't do anything here."

Remembering the arrangement in question- with his intangibility making it impractical to give him equipment to carry himself, it had been decided to leave a radio hidden near the Stargate whenever they travelled anywhere that would be recovered when they returned to Earth, thus allowing Spike to contact the SGC for backup if for some reason the rest of the team were unable to do so himself-, Spike could only nod grimly as he looked at his friend.

He had to give Mitchell this; the man might be the new guy on SG-1, but he _really _knew how to give orders...

"So... the rest of you?" he asked.

"We shall be well in this village, Spike; do not worry about us," Teal'c said, nodding reassuringly at his friend. "If your assistance is required in a non-combatant capacity, we shall launch the emergency flare to summon you to us; otherwise, remain on the outskirts of the city until we are able to join you."

"Check," Spike said, nodding in grim frustration at his teammates.

A part of him might not be sure why he was letting these guys order him around after so long doing his own thing among the Scoobies- unless Buffy had been the one to ask him to do something, anyway-, but the rest of him knew what it was all about; he just wanted to be available to do what he could for his friends.

It might not be what he'd joined the team to do, but if he could help them by staying out of the way, he'd do that.

Ignoring the questioning gaze of the barkeep, he hurried over towards a nearby open side-door and slipped through it,

* * *

A short while later, as he stood in a dark alley a short distance away from the main square, Spike couldn't help but curse his intangibility. It might come in handy for stealth investigations some of the time, but when the situation called for a disguise, unless the situation was important enough for them to cope with the discomfort of him 'hiding' in someone else, he was left with no other option but to retreat and wait, no matter _what _he might want to do to help his friends...

He'd witnessed the Ori soldiers burning the contents of the library while the rest of his team took a quick survey of the surrounding area, but apart from establishing that the Stargate was currently inaccessible due to the Ori guards stationed around the gate and the village there wasn't much any of them could do at this point; the element of surprise could only help them stop a few of the attacking soldiers before sheer weight of numbers put them out of action...

_Damn_, he hated these Prior sods...

It was at times like this that he kind of understood what Darla had always found so sadistically amusing about religion; it didn't matter if it had been created by demons, humans or aliens, sooner or later everything always ended up with at least one sod talking about how their 'god' demanded that innocent people end up dead in order to support their own interpretation of events (And these bastards didn't even have the decency to be worshipping a _completely _fake religion; the Ori might not be actual _gods_, but they were still pretty sodding powerful).

If the rest of his team couldn't figure out a way to get that map and get out of the village- sneaking out of there wasn't too difficult for him so long as he stuck to the shadows and took a short-cut through a few houses, but it was a lot harder when you had to worry about things like doors and side-routes-, they were _definitely _in trouble. Mitchell had ordered him to retreat to the town's outskirts with instructions to come back and help them if he saw the signals, but that didn't make him feel any more comfortable about this whole mess; it had been _way _too long since he'd heard from them...

Just as he was starting to wonder if he should go back into the city- judging by the sun, the day had moved on far more than he was comfortable with-, he felt that sudden sharp jerk in his chest that indicated that the amulet was about to exert its influence over him...

* * *

"Oh, thank _God_!" Vala said, smiling in relief as Spike emerged from behind a nearby tree- whatever was responsible for Spike's 'link' to the amulet always brought him back into existence a short distance away from the gem in question-, looking slightly dazed as he looked at the rest of SG-1.

"What the bloody hell was _that _all about...?" Spike asked, looking slightly blearily at his teammates before his eyes settled on the unexpected sixth member of the group. "And what the hell are _you _doing here?"

"I have come to lead you and your friends to the Sangraal," Osric replied, looking at Spike with a slight smile. "The soldiers have burned my library and the map, but I retain the memory of the route you need to follow; if you and your friends can protect me from the soldiers who seek my information, I shall guide you to your destination."

"Oh, so all we needed to do to get you on our side was _show _you what we're up against?" Spike asked, rolling his eyes slightly as he looked at the older man. "You know, you'd have saved us all a lot of bother if you'd just listened to us _earlier_..."

"Yeah, yeah, we're all feeling the frustration right now, Spike; let's just forget that and move on, huh?" Mitchell said, indicating the path ahead of them with a shrug after a confirming nod from Osric.

"So... you all got out OK?" Spike asked, falling into step alongside the rest of his team as they continued to walk after Osric.

"Had a slight problem with a few soldiers who found us at the last minute, but nothing we couldn't handle," Mitchell clarified. "The Ori soldiers apparently destroyed the original map, but Osric here said that he could lead us along the right route; so long as we're careful, we should be all right."

"Well, that's _something_, anyway..." Spike said, nodding briefly at the old man before he looked back at Vala as another thought occurred to him. "So... did you see-?"

"_No_," Vala said, the firm tone of her voice making it clear that even Spike shouldn't continue that line of inquiry.

Nodding in understanding, Spike fell into silence, the group progressing along in silence, unwilling for the moment to discuss the full scale of what they were facing.

* * *

"What the _Hell_?" Spike muttered, their long walk through a field filled with high grass having brought them to the outskirts of a forest with a strange sight around its borders.

Spread out in front of them, all facing the direction that the team were currently travelling in, were a scattered group of people dressed in clothing similar to the villagers- one woman with her hand over her mouth was almost certainly the missing mother Osric had mentioned-, all of them facing the direction that the map indicated would lead the group to the Sangraal. At first glance all of the people before them simply appeared to be standing completely still, but the sight of a bird frozen in position in the air above the field made it clear that they weren't dealing with a group who'd decided to play a game for some reason.

"What's the matter with them?" Spike asked, looking in confusion at the group before them.

"I don't know..." Sam muttered, studying her hand-held scanner as she walked parallel to the group of frozen people. "I'm picking up varying anomalous readings; stronger here... weaker here... than rising again..."

She paused in her walk as she looked back at the rest of the group. "This is weird; they're temporal fluctuations."

"Meaning?" Mitchell asked.

"Meaning these people are trapped in a time distortion field," Sam clarified.

"A what?" Spike asked (Moments like this _definitely _left him wondering whether he should try and put a bit effort into finding out what the others had done before he'd arrived on the team; the inconvenience of maintaining focus reading over the files might have been worth it to stop himself sounding like an idiot at times like this...).

"An energy field that alters the rate at which time flows inside it compared to how time flows outside it," Sam answered. "A common use of the field is to slow down time so that a person can be immobilised for a long period while they themselves only experience a few seconds, although we've encountered a few that have been used to accelerate time within them; in this case, Morgan apparently set up a time field that virtually freezes anyone trying to enter the woods in position."

"Ah," Spike said, looking at one of the frozen people and shuddering slightly at the thought of what he'd just heard; being stuck in time like that could _not _be pleasant. "Bloody _hell_..."

"Are you sure?" Vala asked uncertainly, indicating the surrounding area. "If it's a time distortion field, why are the leaves moving in the trees?"

"It's probably capable of generating an illusion to supplant the standing weather pattern," Sam suggested. "These readings indicate the time within the field is extremely decelerated. I mean, these people may look like they're standing perfectly still, but in fact they're moving imperceptibly slowly."

"Are they aware of what is happening to them?" Teal'c asked.

"Doubtful," Sam replied with a brief shake of her head. "Several years may pass for us in the few seconds it takes them to take a single step; many of them may not even be aware anything's happened to them yet."

"No chance we could just find a way around it, huh?" Spike asked with a hopeful smile.

"Well, the outer edge of the field extends as far as I can tell in either direction," the astrophysicist explained (It was moments like this that made Spike compare her to a straight, purely science-based Red; how often had she or the Watcher been the ones to explain how certain rituals worked back in the day?) "And it has a slight curve to it. I mean, for all I know, it could form a complete circle; we could walk for miles and never find a way through."

"Any chance I could get through it?" Spike asked, raising a hand as he looked at Sam with a slightly amused smirk. "I get that it's not a definite answer, but maybe I could find the 'off' switch-"

"I can't be sure how your condition would affect how the field affects you, Spike," Sam interrupted, shaking her head apologetically at him. "You might not have a solid body for the field to freeze, but you still think and act in real time, and you're definitely _some _form of matter or energy in your current state even if we can't identify it; your condition might make you immune to the time field if it just affects a person's physical presence, but there's an equal chance that it won't."

"OK, so Spike's probably not an option; any other ideas that you can think of?" Mitchell asked.

"Well, I'm definitely picking up some varied readings," Sam said, turning her attention back to her equipment. "It's almost as if..."

She paused for a moment, taking the time to run through the possible implications of her theory, before she turned to look at her new family and friends with a brief smile. "I think I've found a way in; there's a circuitous path of real-time winding through the temporal fold."

"It's a maze?" Mitchell asked.

"Exactly," Sam confirmed, smiling in confirmation. "With the readings on my scanner, I can use them to guide us through, but you'll all need to follow my lead; if you stray off the path, you could end up trapped in the distortion field."

With that instruction, the group formed up into a line of single file behind Sam as she began to walk through the field of frozen bodies, her gaze constantly fixed on the scanner in her hands. For the first few steps it was relatively straightforward- a few metres in prompting a turn to the left as the only even minor 'course correction' needed at first-, but after another turn to the right, Sam's eyes widened as she studied the scanner.

"Uh oh," she said simply.

"What do you mean, 'uh oh'?" Vala asked urgently.

"Uh oh, you left your stove on, right?" Mitchell asked, prompting Spike to role his eyes slightly in frustration; that comment sounded more like something he'd have expected from the one-eyed carpenter than his new friend.

"The temporal distortions are affecting these readings," Sam explained, looking uncomfortably back at the rest of the group as far as she dared without risking contact with the field around her; she had no real idea how wide the safe path was and wasn't inclined to test it. "We're effectively blind."

"OK, here's a stupid question," Mitchell said, looking slightly uncertainly at Sam. "You _did_ check the batteries in that thing before we left Stargate Command, right?"

"It's not the batteries," Sam replied.

"We could retrace our steps and try our luck with the Ori soldiers," Vala suggested, slightly half-heartedly.

"Do you know the way back?" Sam countered.

"Uh... that way," Vala replied, waving her hand vaguely in the direction they'd just walked.

"Something tells me that's not going to be enough," Spike muttered (It was one of those rare moments when he wished Angel was there; for all his issues with his grandsire, he couldn't deny that the poof had had a _very _good memory for this kind of thing...).

"If Morgan Le Fay left clues as to the whereabouts of the Sangraal, then it is safe to assume that she believed that someone would eventually reach it," Teal'c pointed out. "It also stands to reason that our task, though challenging, is far from impossible."

"Teal'c's right," Daniel put in. "She set this trap to weed out those she deemed unworthy. There is a way out. We just have to be resourceful and carefully think it through."

"Well, Arthur and his knights wouldn't have had access to this advanced technology to guide them through," Vala pointed out. "So, presumably, the answer could be deceptively simple."

For a few moments, the group of seven simply silently contemplated their options, until Sam bent down to pick up a rock from the ground, tossing the rock ahead of her and watching as it came to a halt mid-air.

"Follow me," she said, walking towards the now-frozen rock and picking up another, tossing it to the left and watching as it repeated the other rock's mid-air halt, before a toss to the right resulted in it falling to the ground normally several yards away from them.

"That _is _simple..." Spike commented.

"First rule of Stargate exploration, Spike," Daniel put in, smiling briefly at his friend as they continued walking. "Sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct one."

"Like the time you realised that the constellations changed position without knowing a _thing _about stellar drift?" Sam asked, smiling back at Daniel as she tossed the same rock to the left, revealing a still-clear path. Following the rock to the point where it fell, Sam threw it once again, the rock briefly impacting against a force field before it continued to fall to the ground, clearly indicating that it had left the temporal displacement field.

"All right, we're through," Sam said, looking around at her teammates to make sure that they were all there. "We'd better pick up the pace if we want to cut into Ba'al's lead."


	26. The Vampire and the System Lord

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

"You say that these Ori are possessed of god-like abilities, and yet they are not gods?" Osric asked as they continued their walk, the group having settled into a brisk walking pace that allowed them to keep up a good rate of progress without wearing out their guide.

"No," Daniel replied, his tone a familiar lecturing one that Spike had heard variations of from the Watcher back in Sunnydale on a fairly regular basis. "They're very powerful beings who would have their followers believe as much because faith is the source of their power."

"Faith is something that cannot be won through intimidation and fear," Osric said, in a surprisingly reflective tone considering that they were talking about the people who had arranged for the attack on his village. "If their followers have faith, then they must truly believe."

"Nice view, but I'm not buying it," Spike interjected, looking over scathingly at Osric. "In my book, you've only got faith when you believe in something while recognising that there are bits of your faith that don't fit what others think; how can you actually believe in something when you don't know there's anything _else_ to believe in?"

He might never have had much interest in faith or religion himself when he was originally turned- his status as a technical member of the Order of Aurelius was something he'd only ever used as far as it had managed to help him kill things-, but he'd been fairly Christian back when he'd been alive, so he liked to think he had a few good ideas about religion.

"Exactly," Daniel said, nodding in agreement at Spike. "They only believe because they've been mislead; true faith in something can only come when you're aware of _all _the facts of the situation, rather than being limited to the facts that you're 'allowed' to know. To many less developed civilisations, certain advanced technologies would strike them as supernatural in nature, but that's only because they don't know how it's done..."

_Ain't that the truth_, Spike thought to himself as Osric scoffed; even after learning about his history, Sam still 'insisted' in thinking of the world he represented in terms of demons originating from some other dimension and magic just being a method of manipulating the world around them similar to the powers that the Ancient had apparently developed in the 'run-up' to Ascension, mentioning some stuff about a guy who'd used to work on SG-1 who'd developed the ability to see the future because of some weird brain tumour...

He didn't think it was the case himself, but he didn't care enough about the issue either way to argue about it; it worked with what Sam thought she'd known about the world, so he was content to ignore it unless it became a bigger issue.

"Ridiculous!" Osric said, his vehement denial bringing Spike's mind back to the current topic.

"They simply used their advanced abilities to fashion seemingly magical creations, like the Sangraal or that time dilation field we encountered," Daniel said, clearly continuing his original debate (That bit at least Spike could agree with; no way could any _ritual _cause the kind of effect he'd seen in that time dilation thingy after being abandoned for that long).

"So you would have me believe that you are possessed of a complete understanding of these amazing feats?" Osric countered

"No," Daniel admitted- to his credit, the guy only looked flustered for a moment before he continued talking-, "but just because I don't know how the trick is done doesn't make it magic."

"And I would argue that your inability to comprehend such feats does in fact prove their supernatural nature," Osric said, pausing for rest against a nearby tree as he spoke.

"Their army just ran roughshod over your village, forced you into hiding, and now you're defending 'em?" Mitchell asked, looking sceptically at their guide.

"Hardly!" Osric said, waving his hand dismissively. "I condemn the actions of their soldiers, but am in no position to judge the Ori or their message-"

"In other words, you're still willing to give them a shot despite the fact that they're trying to enforce that 'message' by killing anyone who disagrees with it?" Spike practically spat in disgust, ignoring the warning look from Mitchell; Spike liked the guy as a friend, but that didn't mean that he had to take orders from anyone, and he was going to say his piece about this particular mess. "Anything that people need to kill to enforce doesn't work, you stupid sod; the bastards are practically _admitting _that they know they're in the wrong by making the alternatives look too sodding bleak for anyone to risk defying them!"

"Truth is elusive to those who refuse to see with both eyes, young-" Osric began, only for Mitchell to suddenly hold his hand in a 'halt' gesture. Spike was about to ask what had happened when a faint muttering sound reached his ears, Teal'c swiftly leading the way towards the sound once he had confirmed that everyone else had heard it.

As the group approached the source of the voice through a relatively dense collection of trees, Spike was puzzled at the sight of what seemed to be another man, dressed in a long black leather coat and a similarly-styled outfit, sitting on the ground in a slightly open area, beside a small chest made of a deep reddish-brown wood of some sort positioned on a small pile of rocks. From what he heard as he approached, the man appeared to be complaining to himself about something before he looked up at the sound of the approaching footsteps, revealing that he had a square-ish face with a prominent goatee.

"Wait!" he called, standing up and holding out a hand in a halting gesture, just before a yellow flash leapt up from the ground around them as they crossed over a line created by the trees, spreading upwards in a dome-like shape before any of them could react.

"Well," the bearded man sighed, indicating the area around them with a frustrated wave, "make yourselves comfortable. We're gonna be here a while."

Then his gaze fell on Spike, and he raised a curious eyebrow. "The old man, I recognise, but who are you?"

"Might ask you the same question," Spike replied, his arms folded as he glared back at the other man.

"Spike," Mitchell said, shrugging slightly as he indicated the two men, "this is Ba'al, last of the Goa'uld System Lords- though it's probably one of his clones, given how often we've been running into 'em lately-; Ba'al, this is Spike, the new guy."

"'New guy'?" Ba'al repeated, looking the vampire over with a slight incredulity. "Your people actually allowed... _this_... on your team?"

"Big words from a sucker who's probably a clone of the real deal," Spike countered, folding his arms as he stared back at Ba'al. "I might not exactly be professional, but at least I'm _original_-"

"OK, as fascinating as it is to see someone else putting Ba'al down, any chance we can see about getting out of here?" Mitchell asked, indicating the force field with a quick 'tap' of his P-90 against the energy shield in question, producing a brief yellow spark.

"Won't do you any good," Ba'al said dismissively. "Believe me, I've tried. It's a one-way door."

"How long have you been trapped in here?" Sam asked.

"Three agonizingly tedious days," Ba'al responded. "Which reminds me, I don't suppose you have any food?"

"What's that?" Vala asked, indicating the chest that sat in what appeared to be the centre of the circular area that was now surrounded by the force field.

"That's bait," Ba'al replied dismissively. "When I approached to investigate, I unwittingly triggered the trap."

"You've had the Ancient database for months," Sam put in, looking curiously at him. "Why did it take you so long to get here?

"I can't think clearly on an empty stomach-" Ba'al began.

"And what makes you think we give a crap about your sodding comfort?" Spike asked, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Ba'al. "Only just met you after reading about what your template did and I can't sodding stand you; you really think the people who _experienced _what you're capable of are going to be nice to you?"

For a moment, Ba'al simply stared at Spike, and then he smiled.

"You have an... interesting attitude, Spike of the Tau'ri," he said with a brief nod, before he turned to look at the rest of SG-1 in slightly exasperated resignation. "I only possessed two of the three addresses needed to complete the puzzle. As a result, I had significantly more possibilities to investigate. By a process of elimination, I was left with one prospect, and when I went in search of the planet, it wasn't there."

"Huh?" Spike said, looking in confusion at the Goa'uld. "What are you talking about? We're _standing _on the damn planet; seems like a pretty sodding good indicating that it's here to me!"

"When I came here via the Stargate, yes, but when I sent my ships to these coordinates, I found nothing," Ba'al countered, shooting a brief, bitter gaze at Spike before he continued his explanation while addressing the rest of the team, clearly having decided that he'd get more done by ignoring Spike than he would accomplish by registering his presence. "In the end, my only recourse was to access it via the Stargate, and secure the device with a handful of my Jaffa, and when I became trapped in here, they set off in search of a means of freeing me. They have yet to return."

Glancing around at his teammates as Ba'al continued to talk- he wasn't in the mood to hear _another _guy griping about the loss of his minions-, Spike noted that Daniel and Vala had opened the chest to take a better look at its contents, but the thing was totally empty; evidently, finding the Sangraal wasn't going to be _that _easy...

"You're wasting your time," Ba'al said, looking over at the archaeologist and Vala as they studied the chest's interior. "I've had three days to search for a way out of here. There's nothing inside."

"Well, that's the point, isn't it?" Daniel said, looking up from the chest with a thoughtful expression. "The Parchment of Virtues told us that we'd have to rely on five things in order to reach the Sangraal; prudence, wisdom, charity, kindness, and faith."

"You're saying the parchment was intended to be interpreted literally?" Sam asked, walking over to stand beside the archaeologist as she looked at the chest's interior herself.

"Why not?" Daniel replied, his face still contemplative as he turned over this new idea in his mind. "We were able to make our way through the time dilation field by patiently and carefully negotiating the maze. In other words, we demonstrated prudence as opposed to recklessness, which would have stranded us. So ask yourselves, what does this trap exploit?"

"Curiosity," Ba'al said dismissively.

"Greed," Daniel corrected. "A person approaches a chest expecting to find treasure inside, but instead finds nothing and gets trapped for his trouble."

"So... in order to reverse the trap, you have to reverse the impetus?" Vala asked.

"Right," Daniel confirmed. "The opposite of greed is charity, one of the virtues mentioned in the parchment."

"Instead of taking something, something must be sacrificed," Teal'c concluded.

Nodding in confirmation, Daniel pulled a pen out of his pocket, dropped it into the box, and closed it, only for Mitchell's second experimental tap against the force field to be met with the same results as before after nothing around them showed signs of changing.

"Well," Ba'al said, laughing slightly as he continued to chew on his power bar, "that was an interesting theory."

"Well," Daniel pointed out, "we're all trapped, so we all have to... contribute... something..."

For a moment, Spike wondered what had prompted Daniel to trail off like that, but then he realised that the rest of his team were all looking at him and realised what they'd just registered; in his current physical condition, it wasn't actually _possible _for him to contribute anything to the chest.

"Aw, _crap_..." Mitchell groaned, rolling his eyes as he pulled his hat out and tossed it into the chest. "_That's _annoying..."

"Maybe not..." Sam said, nodding thoughtfully as she tossed a voice recorder over to Daniel to put it in the chest as she looked at Spike. "I doubt the shield was designed with something like you in mind; maybe you could..."

She waved a hand uncertainly at the energy barrier around them as Osric and Teal'c placed a couple of small objects into the chest (Spike thought that he saw Daniel look curiously at what had been added to the chest, but decided it wasn't worth thinking about; Sam's suggestion was what mattered right now). "Well, you're not exactly existing on this plane; maybe it... won't affect you?"

"Pardon?" Ba'al asked, looking inquiringly at Spike. "What does she mean, you're 'not exactly existing on this plane'?"

"Long story, Bally-boy," Spike replied, turning his attention back to the shield in front of him before he shrugged. "Well, no time like the present..."

Closing his eyes so that he could focus better on the goal rather than how it might feel if this guess turned out to be wrong, Spike took a couple of steps back, and then charged towards the shield, wincing as he felt- the first time he'd felt any _real _sensation since he'd 'woken up' in Danny's office; even when he was concentrating he couldn't really 'feel' something for longer than a few seconds these days- what had to be the energy of the force field crackling around his body; damn thing felt like a combination of being caught in the sun and that freaky shield thing that 'Axtius' bugger had used when he was trying to kill Angel...

Finally, the sensation of something burning him ceased, and he opened his eyes to find himself on the other side of the force field, turning around to look back at his friends with a casual smile.

"Huh," he said, smiling at the incredulous expression on Ba'al's face. "How about that; a situation where the problem's also the solution?

"How the-?" Ba'al began.

"Long story that you wouldn't believe even if you heard it, and given that Spike nearly _died _to end up like that you couldn't work out a way to do it to yourself even if you wanted to," Mitchell said simply, before he folded his arms as he looked at Ba'al (Spike noted a large hairdryer in the chest that was probably Vala's 'donation', even if he had to wonder what his new girlfriend- for lack of a better term- was doing with one of _those _offworld...). "Anyway, now that that's out of the way...?"

"As much as I would appreciate being able to... accommodate your request, I have nothing to donate," Ba'al said; judging by the smug little glance he sent in Spike's direction, Spike wondered if the berk expected him to be able to 'share his secret' or something like that (Not that Spike would if he could; this prat could give up something like everybody else).

Evidently, the rest of the team agreed with that view; without a word, Teal'c walked over to pin Ba'al's arms behind his back while Mitchell walked over to search the new arrival, his examination quickly revealing a dagger in Ba'al's boot.

"That particular item holds great... sentimental value," Ba'al said, in a tone of voice that put Spike in mind of the tone a couple of the more sadistic vampires he'd encountered used when discussing the weapons or tools they'd used to kill their families.

Spike was almost grateful when nobody bothered to ask Ba'al why the dagger was particularly sentimentally valuable to him- although a slight expression of distaste on Sam and Teal'c's faces suggested that they might have an idea-; Mitchell just passed the dagger to Daniel, who then placed it in the chest and closed the lid, causing the force field to lower back down around them.

"Well done," Ba'al said, as the team began to move. "Another day in there, I would have gone mad."

"Guess that makes this time to say goodbye," Mitchell said, turning to aim his weapon at Ba'al.

"It would be foolish of you to kill me," Ba'al said, turning back around to face SG-1's leader.

"How so?" Teal'c asked, voicing Spike's own thoughts on the man's last statement; the damn bluff was so pathetic he'd have laughed if the stakes weren't this high...

"Amongst the information I obtained regarding the Sangreal is the name of the protector," Ba'al clarified.

"Protector?" Vala asked Daniel.

"The dragon," Ba'al clarified.

"You see," Osric said to Sam in an almost condescending manner, "I told you there was a dragon."

"I'm sure there's _something _guarding the device," Sam countered. "Maybe it's a hologram."

"Holograms can be dangerous, you know," Mitchell pointed out, with a tone that suggested he knew what he was talking about from some prior experience that Spike made a note to ask about; he didn't want to miss out on any 'team jokes' just because he was new.

"It could be a ship," Daniel added. "Flies, breathes fire, has armoured skin... it's a mistake a mediaeval storyteller could easily make."

Spike briefly wondered if he should be offended at the fact that nobody had asked him if dragons could be real, but concluded that it didn't matter; he wasn't even sure if any had _ever _existed on Earth in the past, even if he was pretty sure they didn't live there nowadays unless someone sent them there from another dimension of some sort, so he wouldn't have been able to tell anyone much about them even if they had asked him.

"...name is no doubt a password or a command code," Spike heard Ba'al saying as his thoughts returned to the current situation. "And either way, if you want it, you'll have to take me with you."

For a moment, Spike wished that he could feel comfortable suggesting that he resort to his 'old methods' to get the information from Ba'al, but quickly pushed that aside; even if he was the kind of person who did that anymore, his teammates wouldn't like it.

Besides, he'd never been very good at the torture aspect anyone. Angelus had been the real master at getting information from people who didn't want to talk, but the only thing he'd really learned how to do torture-wise was make people scream; he just hadn't had Angelus's ability to feel such a sheer sadistic _thrill _from the whole damn thing...

As they walked off towards a large mountain off in the distance- most likely the location of the Sangraal; in Spike's experience, an obvious landmark like that was just _asking _for people to hide important stuff in it on quests like this-, Spike could only hope that this sod lived up to the reasons why they were bothering to keep him around; he really didn't want to have _too _many people out there knowing that he could walk through energy shields like that, even if the prat didn't know _how _he'd done it...

* * *

As he walked towards a particular part of the mountain that Osric's map apparently identified as the location of the cave of the Sangraal, Spike had to admit that he'd actually enjoyed that last bit of walking; it didn't make up for not being able to actually touch anything for _real_, but it was nice to be able to walk around without worrying about the sunlight turning him to dust...

"This is it!" Osric said, walking over a fallen tree to excitedly point at a hole in the rock face in front of them partly concealed from view by moss and branches, Ba'al close behind him. "The cave entrance. The Sangraal is located within."

"Too bad you won't be coming with us," Mitchell said, raising his weapon to aim it at the two men.

"I thought I made it clear-" Ba'al began.

"We're not talking about _you_, Bally," Spike said, rolling his eyes as he indicated Osric.

"Ah," Ba'al said, smiling slightly as he glanced at Osric before pointing at an area off to the side. "Well, uh, allow me to get out of your line of fire."

"Have you lost your senses?" Osric asked, raising his hands defensively as the Goa'uld moved off to the side.

"'Truth eludes he who does not seek it with both eyes wide'," Daniel said. "That's a quote from the Book of Origin. You paraphrased it earlier today. Now, I might not have noticed, but I spent the past year studying the good book, so..."

"Surely you're not basing your suspicions on this mere coincidence?" Osric asked indignantly.

"And when it came time to give up a possession to free ourselves from the forcefield trap, I noticed the designs on your ring," Daniel continued. "Not Celtic as one might expect given the cultural background of this planet, but distinctly Ori."

"The ring was a gift from a travelling merchant!" Osric protested, although even to Spike he sounded desperate (He was just grateful that the main reason he'd missed most of the clues was that he hadn't done much reading about the Ori; he'd spent most of the last few days on Earth with Vala, and they'd generally tried to _avoid _talking about the war). "You're making a mistake!"

"You're the one who screwed up; now drop the act!" Mitchell said, staring neutrally at the old man.

For a moment, Osric looked as though he was about to continue his protestations of innocence, but, after a brief glance confirmed that everyone around him had realised that Daniel's assessment of the situation had been accurate, he seemed to relax.

"It would have been so much easier if you had remained oblivious," he said, his voice reflecting a casual arrogance that Spike had heard used by the likes of Angelus and Adam in the past. "But now things will be much more difficult."

With that, Osric's entire appearance shimmered before he re-solidified in front of the team as Adria, now dressed in a form-fitting black leather dress with silver metal 'shoulder pads'.

"_Especially_ for you," she said as she looked at Daniel with a more-than-slight sneer, seemingly unconcerned about the weapons now aimed at her as Daniel and Sam exchanged apprehensive glances about the implications of that last statement.

"You've done something new with your eyes," Mitchell commented (Now that someone pointed it out, Spike noted that Adria's eyes weren't the gold colour they'd been when he'd fought her during the whole Dakara mess, but a more natural shade of brown, although the subsequent brief 'flare' of golden fire in her pupils was slightly unnerving even for him).

"So," Mitchell continued inquiringly, "the troops in the village, the shootout in the tavern, that was all a set-up?"

"I had been planning to prompt you to come here on my own; I retain some awareness of your mind after all, Mother," Adria said, shrugging slightly as she looked at Vala before her eyes fixed on Spike with a slight smile. "But then your new 'associate' had his little 'epiphany' about how the various addresses you'd already found fitted together, and from there, it was simple to wait-"

"Hold on; you're saying that you've known about this planet from the word 'go'?" Spike asked, looking incredulously at the Orici (If Glory couldn't get him to talk, Adria damn well wasn't going ot make him be quiet either). "If you _knew _where the damn thing was, why didn't you just go and get it yourself; does your ego need _that _much pandering that we have to do everything for you?"

"Apparently," Adria replied, shooting him a hard stare that made Spike briefly feel uncomfortably warm despite his inability to actually feel _anything _in this state before she turned to address Daniel, "Morgan put safeguards in place to ensure the weapon could only be secured by, what was the term again? 'Those possessing truth of spirit'. I can't think of anyone more appropriate than a former Ascended. With your help, I'll secure the device."

"Hate to disappoint," Mitchell said pointedly, opening fire on Adria as she began to take a step towards him, only for his shots to be automatically halted by her personal shield, prompting Mitchell to abandon the obviously-flawed assault.

"You've seen a demonstration of my powers-" Adria began.

"Yeah, and in case you'd forgotten," Spike interjected, walking up to Adria with a resolute glare, "your power means absolutely jack to _me_."

Before Adria could retaliate, Spike lashed out with a powerful punch that sent her flying into the nearest rock wall, the Orici subsequently falling to the ground in an unconscious heap.

"Bint might go on a lot about those screwy 'powers' of hers'," Spike said, smirking slightly as he looked back at his teammates, "but she does _not _know how to take a punch."

"You are able to... _punch _her?" Ba'al said, looking at Spike with a slight edge of admiration that reminded the vampire uncomfortably of Angelus studying his next planned meal. "You are a very... unique being, Spike of the Tau'ri-"

"And, as Cameron already told you, there's no way for you to get the same 'benefits' as Spike without going through a complicated and elaborate mess involving a near-death experience and other details that it's probably impossible for you to duplicate exactly, so _stop that_, OK?" Vala said, glaring over at Ba'al before she turned back to look at Spike. "Uh... not meaning to sound excessively, cruel, but is there any way that you could...?"

"Do more?" Spike finished for her, shaking his head in response. "Nope, sorry; don't think I can do anything more serious to her with... things the way they are."

It wasn't the best description of his current 'inability' to act, but given that he was unable to actually _say _why he couldn't kill Adria without giving Ba'al more information about what he was now than he felt comfortable with, it was best to be vague and give the idea that her shield would stop him from actually causing _fatal _harm to her, rather than actually say that he didn't think he could maintain his focus long enough to break her neck or something similar.

"Well," Mitchell said, shrugging slightly as he indicated the cave in front of them, "if the only thing we've got to do now is keep on going, let's get moving before she wakes up, huh?"

"That is a reasonable course of action, Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c said, before the two of them turned to walk into the cave, Ba'al close behind them with Sam and Daniel's weapons trained on his back as Vala and Spike brought up the rear.

Still, even if they weren't even halfway through Morgan's trials yet- they'd only been tested on two of the five virtues-, Spike already felt like his personal presence here had been vindicated; if he hadn't been here, they'd have had to put with the risk that _Adria _would have managed to come along with them as they went looking for the Sangraal...


	27. Kindness, Wisdom and Faith

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

As Spike walked through the caves with his teammates, taking care to keep an eye on his feet- he didn't know if he _could _'trip' based on Sam's theories about how he was able to walk despite existing in an intangible state, but he didn't want to find out by falling through somebody in full view of Bally-boy-, he wondered a bit at the unusual combination of natural and artificial formations inside it. The stalactites on the top were relatively straightforward, but many of the accompanying stalagmites had been removed, the floor having subsequently been carved into basic man-made steps.

The group simply settled into silence as they walked further along the cave, keeping a careful eye on their surroundings for any sign of further clues about the next potential trap. Mitchell briefly noted that the stalactites and stalagmites at this point looked more like they were made of wax rather than traditional rock, but given his relatively limited knowledge of geology he was going to ignore that anomaly until he had more time to look into whether a rock that looked like that was possible; at the moment, he was more concerned with keeping an eye on Ba'al in case the Goa'uld tried anything funny.

Then the group entered a more open area of the path in the form of a decently-sized chamber with Ancient writing on the wall in front of them and two paths leading in two directions on either side of the writing, and Mitchell's priorities shifted back to the task at hand (Particularly when a casual glance backwards as Daniel moved forward to study the writing revealed that the path they'd just entered by appeared to have 'vanished'; whether it was a sliding 'door' or a solid hologram he couldn't say, but either way they definitely wouldn't be getting out that way any time soon, particularly when Spike's connection to the amulet would pretty definitely stop him going too far that way).

"_Choose the way that is just and true_," Daniel read from the sign before them.

"I don't suppose that literally means the 'right' way, huh?" Spike asked as he looked back at the archaeologist, hands in his pockets as he looked around himself in slight frustration and boredom; the amulet restricting him was annoying enough, but add in the fact that he genuinely didn't _want _to leave his new teammates down here even if he could find his way out on his own...

Why did they make it so bloody _complicated _to be the hero these days?

"No, it doesn't," Daniel confirmed, drawing Spike back to the original issue. "The word meaning 'just and true' in Ancient is very different from the one meaning 'right' in the directional sense of the word; we need to find some other way of figuring out what they meant by that..."

Her voice trailed off as she and Sam turned to look at the tunnel to the left, an uncertain expression on both their faces.

"What?" Spike asked, only to pause as he heard what they had doubtless picked up themselves; the sound of a crying child from somewhere further down the tunnel (He blamed that lack of observation on the acoustics and the fact that he didn't technically have ears any more; it was _not _because his hearing was going...).

"What the hell is a _kid _doing all the way out here?" Mitchell asked.

"Well, the obvious possibility is that it's a trap," Vala pointed out.

"Or it could be a test," Daniel said as he looked around at the others.

"A test of what; our stupidity?" Ba'al asked, looking over at Daniel with a sarcastic tone to his voice.

"Unless you've got any _other _ideas about how to get out of here, it's the best we've got," Spike said, staring briefly at Ba'al before he hurried after the rest of SG-1, Sam now leading the search for the child they'd just heard, leaving Ba'al with no other option but to follow them.

After only a few feet, the light on the end of Sam's P-90- which had been blocking Spike's night-vision from seeing anything in that direction himself; disadvantage of being something that 'evolved' to hunt at night- fell on the form of a small boy, about five years old, dressed in a green hat and shirt with a brown sleeveless 'jacket' over it that looked like the kind of thing that the villagers had been wearing earlier. Before anyone could ask the kid what he was doing there, however, the boy cried out in fright and began to run down another tunnel.

"Wait!" Sam yelled, the group slightly picking up the pace to follow the child. "We're here to help!"

Even as they ran after the child along increasingly-unstable steps- it was as though whoever had designed this place had stopped paying much attention to the fine details at this point-, Spike had to wonder what the point of this particular chase was; the Parchment of Virtues might have stated that kindness was one of the virtues that those who sought the Sangraal would need to possess, but as much as Spike hated to agree with a smug git like Ba'al, it wasn't out of the question that this was also intended to test their wisdom by giving them an obvious trap to avoid...

Then a loud clanking noise up ahead pushed all thought of which virtues this was intended to test from their minds, particularly when they rounded the corner and saw an iron portcullis in front of them, the small boy sitting on the floor behind the door crying and shaking at his predicament.

"Hang on there, kid," Mitchell said, walking over to grab the gate bars in one hand. "We'll get you out of there; just hold on..."

With that, he tightened his grip around the gate bars and pushed, swiftly being joined by Teal'c and Sam.

"Little help here!" Mitchell called, after their efforts to raise the gate had proven fruitless. Not needing any further encouragement, Daniel and Vala joined the effort, although Ba'al still stood back, looking slightly scornfully at the team.

"He's tiny," he said dismissively. "Tell him to squeeze through the bars."

"Assist us," Teal'c said, turning slightly to look at Ba'al, "or I will squeeze _you _through these bars."

Faced with the Jaffa's stare, Ba'al moved to join the group's efforts to move the barrier, prompting Spike to step forward and take hold of the nearest relatively open area as far away from Ba'al as possible (Anything that stopped Ba'al learning that he wasn't solid was a good thing right now; he didn't trust the guy a sodding _inch_)...

As soon as Spike's fingers touched the grill, it began to lift immediately, as though it had just been waiting for the right kind of signal. The boy on the other side smiled slightly at the group before he vanished in a bright glow, leaving the team looking at each other.

"How about that?" Mitchell said, with a slightly satisfied smile. "We did pick the right way."

"Yes, you were right; can we keep going now?" Ba'al asked, waving a frustrated hand at the now-open path before them.

"Good to hear you admit it, mate," Spike said, giving Ba'al a light shove in the shoulder before he continued on down the path alongside Vala, leaving Ba'al fuming as he was left to keep walking alongside Mitchell as Sam and Daniel lead the way. After a short period of walking, they came to what appeared to be a dead end, until Spike noticed a panel of what appeared to be writing in the middle of the wall.

"Hey," he said, walking over to stand beside the panel as he looked at Daniel. "This mean anything to you?"

"It's another riddle," Daniel said as he walked over, only taking a brief moment to study the writing in front of them. "_I'm struck and cut, shaped and cooled, then bound by rings to release what's stored_."

Whether speaking those words had triggered a signal of some sort, or they'd simply been standing in the new cave for too long, was never established, but the cave around them began to shake and rumble around them, bits of dust dropping from the roof as it continued.

"You might want to pick things up a little bit here..." Mitchell asked, glancing uncertainly at the archaeologist as the room shook.

"OK, we need to think about this," Vala said, taking a brief breath as though trying to calm herself. "What fits all those categories; something that can be cut or shaped-?"

"Key!" Mitchell yelled suddenly. "The answer is key!"

"_Clavia_!" Daniel yelled at the panel, the wall almost automatically vanishing as Daniel spoke, allowing the group to run through the new door, only for the rumbling to continue as they approached another panel with Ancient writing on it.

"_I shake the earth with booming thunder, fell forests whole and homes complete_!" Daniel yelled, urgently scanning the text. "_I influence ships, topple kings, sweep down swift yet remain unseen_!"

"OK, the last bit makes me think of time- bit like some riddle from _The Hobbit_, really-, but the first-" Spike began.

"Wind," Teal'c interrupted.

"Vantio!" Daniel said, nodding in understanding at Teal'c's deduction before they ran into another tunnel, hurrying up a flight of stairs only to discover another panel as the rumbling continued.

"Aw, for crying out loud...!" Mitchell groaned as Daniel leaned forward to study it.

"_ Battle-scarred in times of strife_," he read uncertainly. "_Resistant to... resistant to..._"

"To what?" Elizabeth asked.

"I don't know; I can't quite..." Daniel began, studying the panel quizzically.

"Illness, maybe?" Spike asked uncertainly (Maybe the fact that he _wasn't _in danger of being crushed meant that he was able to think a bit more clearly than others, even if he didn't fancy being actually _buried _when the roof collapsed). "I mean, they _can _leave physical symptoms when it gets rough-"

"_Contagia_!" Daniel yelled, the panel dropping as the rumbling around them finally came to stop.

"Looks like that's done it," Mitchell said, glancing around himself with a slight smile.

"Yes, I'm definitely glad that's over with; riddles were never my strong point," Vala reflected with a slightly grim smile. "I was more comfortable with visual puzzles, like 'which of these symbols does not belong with the others', or 'reconfigure the tiles to make the hidden picture'..."

"Is it just me," Mitchell asked, looking back at the others with a slight uncertainty, "or is it getting hotter in here?"

"Now that you mention it..." Vala began, just as the group turned around a corner to find themselves in yet another decently-sized underground chamber, with a wall of fire burning at the end of the only other passageway out of the chamber, blocking their way out.

"It _is _a tad toasty," Vala said, taking in the sight in front of them.

"_Bugger_..." Spike groaned, before he sighed and shrugged as he looked over at the rest of his team. "Well, since I'm the only one who won't get heatstroke or something, I'll just nip on ahead and see if there's something close up that could be an 'off' switch of some kind; rest of you feel free to mill about back here if you want."

Without waiting for confirmation from his teammates, he walked up to the fire- without actually crossing it; as Teal'c had pointed out, these tasks had to be _possible _for normal people to accomplish, and he doubted whoever set this up expected somebody to burn themselves to get through- and began to study the walls around it, looking for any sign of some kind of switch or carving that they could use. Having confirmed that there was no sign of any such device, he turned around and headed back to the rest of the team, noting briefly that Mitchell and Sam had apparently headed back the other way.

"Well, if there's anything we can press up there, I can't seen it," he said with a dismissive shrug.

"Then we should head back," Ba'al suggested briefly.

"Not an option," Sam said, walking back up from the passage they'd just entered the chamber by. "The passageways had resealed behind us."

"Well," Ba'al said, looking around at the rest of the group with a condescending smile that reminded Spike of Angelus at his worst, "it would appear that I was right; we've walked into a trap."

"No... this doesn't make sense," Daniel muttered, looking at the passage before them with a sigh. "We made all the right choices to lead us to this point. I know the Sangraal lies beyond that wall of fire; we just have to find a way through..."

He paused for a moment before he began to walk slowly towards the flames, a reflective expression in his eyes.

"It's the only one left," he muttered.

"Daniel?" Sam asked, looking in confusion at the archaeologist as she and the rest of their small group began to gather around the passage entrance.

"The parchment told us that five virtues would guide us in our quest for the Sangraal," Daniel elaborated. "Prudence, kindness, charity, wisdom, and faith. We displayed prudence in finding a way out of the temporal maze, charity in escaping the forcefield trap, kindness by helping the child and finding the hidden passageway, and wisdom in solving the riddles; the only virtue left is faith."

Pausing for a moment, Daniel took a deep breath, and then walked into the fire before him, the flames dissipating around him almost as soon as he reached them, leaving him totally unharmed as he turned around to look at the others, the tunnel up ahead now open to them after the fire that had so briefly cut them off from it.

They had only walked for a few more metres before they finally arrived at what could only be their final destination; a large cavern, consisting primarily of a deep abyss with a narrow walkway stretching from the cavern entrance to a wider platform in the middle of the abyss.

The platform itself appeared relatively straightforward, but the two objects on it were definitely worth attention; the taller of the objects before them was a dolmen-like structure with a blue diamond-shaped stone pattern on it slightly above the height of the average man, Ancient writing running from the top to the bottom of the dolmen, while the glowing red form of what looked like the Sangraal rested on a lower dias.

"There it is," Ba'al said, smiling as he indicated the object before them. "We've found it; ours for the taking-"

"It's Danny's, actually," Spike interjected, glaring over at the Goa'uld.

"Pardon?" Ba'al asked, turning to glare at the vampire.

"Hey, I may not buy everything that Adria bird was saying at the gate, but if she thought Danny-boy was her best chance at getting this thing, I think it's not exactly out of the question to think that he's _our _best chance at getting it," Spike said, looking pointedly at Ba'al before he indicated the narrow bridge in front of them with a slightly hopeful shrug.

"Good point..." Daniel said, swallowing slightly before he stepped forward and began to walk along the narrow bridge.

As he walked onto the dias, Daniel reached out to take the glowing red form of the Sangraal, determined to claim the object they'd sought for so long and make the next step towards stopping the Ori once and for all...

Only for his hand to pass through the red orb as though it wasn't even there, the object subsequently 'flickering' in a manner that confirmed Daniel's initial suspicion; if the thing before him wasn't a hologram, he'd be _very _surprised.

"Well?" Sam called over to him where she and the others still stood at the passage exit.

"It's... it's a hologram," Daniel replied, looking uncertainly back at the rest of the group. "I don't-"

Whatever else he'd been about to say, Daniel stopped talking as the cave was suddenly filled with the sound of mechanisms moving, followed by dust beginning to fall from the cave wall around the entrance. Daniel only just managed to run back across the bridge to join the rest of the team when the sound of what appeared to be large wings replaced the sound of the machinery.

"What the...?" Mitchell muttered, looking over at the others apprehensively. "Why is it I'm suddenly getting the feeling that we're not done yet?"

"Possibly because our thoughts on the subject of dragons were wrong?" Vala asked, pointing at a massive form now hovering above them, resembling a massive lizard with two long wings in place of its forearms, hissing at them as it opened its mouth.

"Oh, _bugger_..." Spike thought as he took in the sight in front of him.

As cool as it was to actually _see _a dragon, he _really _wished it wasn't happening under these kind of circumstances...


	28. The Guardian's Name

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

"_Run_!" Vala yelled, voicing the thoughts of all of the group as they turned around to hurry back along the still-open passage behind them, narrowly avoiding the subsequent blast of flame that followed them as they hurried around the first available corner.

"OK," Mitchell said, glancing back as the dragon's flames beat against the wall behind them, "looks like Draco's too big to fit through this, but we should probably keep moving..."

"Looks like an exit this way," Sam added, indicating another passage that seemed slightly lighter at the end than the others. "Come on, let's go!"

After a few minutes' more hurried movement, the group finally found themselves back outside the mountain, shaken by this latest turn of events but all still clearly alive.

"OK, what the _hell_ just happened there?" Mitchell asked, indicating the cave they'd just left by.

"It was a hologram," Daniel explained. "The Sangraal wasn't real."

"What?" Sam said, looking incredulously at the archaeologist. "Are you saying we came all this way for nothing?"

"Given the way these things work, I'm betting that Puff back there is our final test to get what we're after," Spike said, jerking his thumb back at the tunnel they'd been running through only moments ago.

"You are joking, right?" Ba'al asked, glaring over at Spike. "You may be able to cope with an unusual amount of physical damage, but it would be _madness _to challenge that thing!"

No sooner had Ba'al finished speaking, then the sound of rocks breaking prompted the group to glance up just in time to see the dragon emerge from the top of the mountain, its wings spread as it began to dive towards them with a loud screech.

"I don't think we're going to have a choice..." Vala said, swallowing slightly at the sight before them.

With that, the group of five turned and ran towards the nearby tree line, a few brief efforts at firing their P-90s at the dragon just serving to confirm that the creature wasn't vulnerable to their weaponry.

"So..." Vala asked as the group took up position behind some of the nearest available trees, "what's the plan now?"

"It can't see us as long as we stay in the trees," Ba'al commented. "We should be able to make it back to the village."

"Oh, _real _big of you, Bally-boy," Spike said, glaring sarcastically at the Goa'uld. "No wonder you sods lost your empire; the first time you face something you can't stop on the first try, you just go and sodding quit?"

"Spike's right," Daniel said resolutely. "The dragon's the final test; we've come too far to give up now."

"It's just that kind of noble sentiment that's going to get us all killed," Ba'al said sarcastically.

"Y'know, if we're tossing around criticism, I thought you said you knew that bugger's name?" Spike asked, glaring at the ex-System Lord.

"Spike makes a point," Mitchell pointed out, looking over at Ba'al with a slight smirk. "That _is _the reason I didn't shoot you earlier, after all..."

"Ah, yes..." Ba'al said, looking slightly awkwardly at the rest of SG-1. "I may have exaggerated about that slightly..."

"In other words, you lied," Spike groaned. "_Bugger_..."

"In any case, you didn't think that just by calling out its name, you'd suddenly be able to control it?" Ba'al countered, regaining his composure as he looked over at the vampire.

"I don't know," Daniel said, shaking his head thoughtfully. "Name magic is common in most mythologies; to know something's secret name is to steal its power..."

"Any chance that parchment thing had some kind of clue we could use so that we don't just have to _guess _what to say right now?" Spike asked, waving a hand impatient. "I'm not exactly keen on you sods getting torched by Daryl over there, you know!"

"OK, hold on a minute," Daniel said, holding up a hand as inspiration began to gleam in his eyes. "The Parchment said that the Sangraal would belong to 'he who speaks the Guardian's name'; maybe the clue's in that?"

"We've already guessed that the dragon's name will let us control it-" Ba'al fumed.

"No, that's the point; the 'Guardian' is _not _the dragon!" Daniel said, looking around at his teammates in what Spike was tempted to call a 'Eureka' moment. "The Guardian is the person who set this whole thing up... the 'Guardian' is Morgan le Fay!"

"Right!" Vala said, promptly getting to her feet and running towards the dragon as it stood on the ground, 'glaring'- as much as something whose face seemed to be stuck in a permanent grimace could be said to be glaring- in her direction.

"Wait!" Daniel yelled, he and Spike breaking from the trees to hurry after her. "No!"

"What the _Hell_?" Mitchell groaned, reaching into his pocket to pull out a couple of rounds of C4 before hurrying after the vampire, the archaeologist and the thief; maybe if he could catch up to them, he could do some damage to the dragon by throwing this thing down the dragon's throat...

"Hey!" Vala yelled, as she took up position in front of the dragon. "Morgan Le Fay!"

As the dragon turned to look at her, Vala swallowed anxiously as she took in the sight of the massive creature in front of her, its wings lifting it up off the ground once again.

"Darryl?" the ex-space-thief said, looking apprehensively at the creature, just before the archaeologist and the vampire reached her position.

"Ganos Lal!" Daniel yelled upwards at the dragon still hovering above them, just as the dragon was opening its mouth to launch another fireblast at them.

As soon as Daniel had spoken, the dragon's entire body suddenly seemed to glow with a brilliant light before it folded in on itself like it was made of paper before it vanished into nothingness, with only the singed trees around them serving as any indication that it had been there in the first place.

"Wow..." Mitchell said, as he came to a halt beside his teammates, looking at the empty space in the sky where a dragon had been earlier before looking at Daniel. "'Ganos Lal'?"

"It was Morgan's name before she Ascended," Daniel replied.

"Yeah... I know," Vala said, nodding awkwardly at the archaeologist.

"Thanks for the assist," Mitchell said, turning to look grimly at Ba'al as Sam and Teal'c walked up to join their teammates, staring slightly sarcastically at the former System Lord.

"Well, to be honest, I wouldn't have been much use to you," Ba'al said nonchalantly. "My strengths lie in strategy and command, whereas yours lie in armed combat and dealing with..."

"Dragons?" Sam finished for him.

"Clearly," Ba'al said, shrugging uncertainly at him.

"Yeah, great way to cover up your inadequacies, Bally-boy," Spike said, before he clapped his hands together and indicated the mountain before them. "Anyway, with that out of the way, let's try this again, shall we?"

With that brief exchange, the group turned around walked back into the mountain cavern system they'd just left a few moments ago, the cave entrance still open and unsealed as the group advanced into the underground network that would lead them back to the Sangraal.

Finally arriving back in the cavern where the dragon had originally appeared, the seven of them advanced carefully along the narrow bridge to gather around the glowing red orb of the Sangraal; with the last trap having been dealt with, nobody saw any point in staying back at a moment like this.

"OK," Daniel said, as he reached out to take the object before them. "Let's get this..."

His voice trailed off as his hand passed through the red orb once again.

"Oh, come _on_!" Sam said in frustration, looking almost like she was prepared to shoot something for their continued inability to find what they were looking for.

Spike was just about to voice his own exasperation with this continued lack of progress when he saw the diamond-shaped stone formation on the obelisk behind them glow a brilliant blue, followed by the rest of the people around him suddenly disappearing in a burst of white light.

"What?" the vampire said, looking around himself incredulously. "I don't believe- AARGH!" he yelled, as he felt a sudden sharp tugging at his chest as though something was trying to pull his heart and spine out of his chest...

* * *

As the pain faded, Spike found himself standing in a new room with a similar rock structure to the caverns he'd been in earlier, looking around himself as he tried to regain his focus (Fortunately he'd materialised a short distance behind Ba'al, in approximately the same position he'd been in when they'd gathered around the Sangraal; at least that meant the guy probably hadn't noticed anything 'funny').

Glancing around their new location in more detail, Spike had to admit that it didn't look like that bad a place. Unlike the caverns they'd been exploring for the last several minutes, this cavern appeared to be more like a private study than a simple cave, with wooden torches around them- the torches lighting up almost as soon as they arrived in the room-, along with various books stacked on shelves and a chest of drawers up against the wall, as well as a desk and a couple of chairs that seemed to have been chosen to relax and work in respectively.

A few jars and what looked like a crystal ball were positioned on top on the chest of drawers beside the books, but the most obvious anomaly in the room was a strange circular metal table near the centre of the room with metal bars sticking out of it and a relatively smooth upper surface, with no chairs near it or objects on it to give any sign that it was used for anything.

"OK... what just happened?" Vala asked, looking anxiously at her surroundings.

"It looks like we were... transported to another chamber," Sam said, she, Daniel and Mitchell pulling out their torches to better examine their surroundings. "It's probably a last security measure Morgan installed."

"I dunno," Mitchell commented, indicating Ba'al with his torch. "It let _him _in."

"I don't think Morgan was too concerned about the Goa'uld," Daniel pointed out. "It would have been the Ori she was worried about; maybe the teleportation system was designed to prevent anyone loyal to the Ori gaining access at the last stage if someone like Adria managed to find the way."

"You know," Mitchell said, as he shone his torch over the books on the nearest shelf, "I'm still not seeing anything here that looks like a Sangraal; why did she go to all this effort to send us somewhere that _doesn't _have what we're looking for?"

"I think I know," Sam said from the corner of the room, prompting the rest to turn and look at what she was now staring at; an alcove in the wall filled with what looked like thick green ice, glowing with a faint gleam even as they stared at it, containing an old man with long grey hair and an equally-long beard in grey robes, a slab of rock to the figure's right decorated with Ancient writing.

"'Here lies Myrrdin, Archmage of the Round'," Daniel said, leaning over to read the writing as the assembled SG-1 members gathered around the figure, Mitchell and Spike standing slightly at the back to both examine the rest of the room and keep an eye on Ba'al.

"Just to clarify..." the male lieutenant colonel said, indicating the figure before them with his torch, "that's not a hologram; he's the real McCoy, right?"

"I think so..." Daniel muttered, staring at the figure before him in barely-concealed amazement.

"How long has he... been in there?" Mitchell asked, looking uncertainly at the figure.

"Well over a thousand years," Daniel reflected.

"We have encountered Ancient stasis technology such as this before," Teal'c commented. "General O'Neill was kept in a similar pod in Antarctica."

"Really?" Spike said, looking over at the Jaffa in surprise. "Why did he do that?"

"Long story involving Anubis's attempt to attack Earth that isn't really relevant right now; what's _important _is how we get this guy out," Mitchell said, studying the frozen 'wizard' before them.

"I have no idea..." Daniel began.

"Hey, guys!" Vala yelled, prompting the group to turn around as she walked over to a black octagonal shape on the wall near the circular table they'd noticed upon their arrival. "Look at this!"

"Vala, be careful!" Daniel yelled, just as a cylindrical object suddenly protruded outwards from the shape; apparently, whatever it was had been activated by Vala's close proximity to it.

"I..." Vala began, looking awkwardly back at the others, clearly confused about what had just happened (Not that Spike could blame her; he had a few questions about that thing himself).

Before anyone could say anything else, a sound behind them prompted the group to turn back to look at the stasis chamber as the 'ice' receded away from the occupant. The old man inside only had time to weakly open his eyes before he began to fall forward.

"Hey, Jackson!" Mitchell yelled, grabbing one of Merlin's arms as Daniel grabbed the other.

"Clear the sodding desk!" Spike yelled, Teal'c promptly sweeping the books off the nearby table before Mitchell and Daniel half-carried, half-dragged Merlin over to lay him down on the table. As he was stretched out before them, Merlin weakly opened his mouth as though he was about to say something, his eyes flicking from one figure to the other, before he leant back and closed his eyes, his body slumping slightly as he did so.

"Bloody Hell..." Spike groaned, rolling his eyes as he looked up at Daniel. "If this bugger just went and died on us-!"

"No, he's alive," Daniel said, leaning over to place his fingers on Merlin's neck to check his pulse. "He probably just needs some time to revive completely."

"All right..." Sam said, nodding briefly at Daniel before she indicated the cave behind her, which appeared to lead to another part of the cavern system they were in. "In the meantime, we should see if there's a way out of here."

"Let us know what you find," Ba'al said as Sam and Mitchell turned to walk towards a nearby passage, only for Teal'c to grab Ba'al by the collar and drag him along with them, Ba'al's pathetic attempt to save his own dignity failing to make a particular impression on Spike as he vanished down the corridor.

"So," the vampire asked after a few moments of silent contemplation, Daniel looking around the study while he and Vala just stood around, Spike indicating the unusual black object that Vala had activated earlier, "what does that thing do that got you all worked up?"

"Well... if it's what it looks like, it's an Ancient Repository of Knowledge," Daniel answered, looking back at the vampire with a slight shrug. "We've encountered two of them before; when activated, they download the knowledge of the technology and history of the Ancients into a person's mind."

"Really?" Spike said, looking at the device with an appreciative smile; if what he'd heard and remembered about the Ancients was correct, those things were _definitely _useful. "_Nice_..."

"Both times the download took place we almost lost Jack- General O'Neill- when the knowledge he'd been given almost destroyed his mind," Daniel added grimly.

"Huh?" Vala asked, looking at Daniel in confusion. "How does that work?"

"At our current evolutionary level, the human brain just isn't designed to cope with the sheer amount of information inside that thing," Daniel explained. "It's the equivalent of putting too much in one bag; it might hold for a while, but it won't last forever. Jack only survived his encounters with one because the Asgard were able to extract the knowledge before his brain totally burnt itself out, and the second time around we had to put him in suspended animation in an Ancient base we'd found on Earth to keep him alive long enough for them to get to him."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding slightly as he studied the object once again, his enthusiasm dampened by this new. "So, neat bit of tech, but _really_ dangerous to use for too long, eh?"

"Which is why we shouldn't use it," Daniel confirmed, before he turned to look contemplatively at Merlin, his thoughts evidently shifting to another topic. "You know, it's amazing how similar this is to the myth..."

"Hmm?" Vala asked, having moved to sit in a chair near to Merlin's still-resting body.

"Supposedly, Morgan trapped Merlin in a cave and left him frozen there for all eternity," Daniel clarified. "Only in reality, I think she was trying to protect him."

"From what?" Vala asked, as Daniel walked around to stand on the opposite side of the apparently sleeping sorcerer, leaving Spike to stand at the top of the table.

"Well," Daniel continued, "I'm starting to think that maybe Morgan did destroy the Sangraal after all. I mean, she probably figured she had no choice; that if she didn't do it, the other Ancients would have just sent someone else."

"So, when she couldn't save the thing itself, she gave us the only guy who could put it back together later?" Spike concluded, looking at the man lying on the table before them with a slight smile. "Neat way to get around the rules, I'll give her that."

He was trying to remain calm, but even with the best will in the world he thought it would be impossible for any supernatural creature to be _totally_ nonchalant about the current situation; he was in the same room as _Merlin_, for crying out loud!

"Well," Mitchell said, as he, Sam and Ba'al walked back into the cave, "the good news is that we're safe, but the bad news is that we're stuck in a desert on what we're assuming is another planet-"

"Hold on; _another _planet?" Spike cut in, looking in frustration at Mitchell. "How'd that happen?"

"Given that there's a Stargate just outside the cave, my best guess is that we weren't just sent to another chamber, we were sent to another planet," Sam explained. "The obelisk near the Sangraal must have teleported us through the Stargate after activating it by remote control; the fact that there's another obelisk here that supports that theory, anyway."

"And?" Vala asked, looking at the other woman curiously. "What else is wrong?"

"We can't dial out," Sam answered, her expression grim. "Somebody tampered with the DHD."

"I can fix it," Ba'al said, an Angelus-like smirk on his face as he looked at the others. "Reprogramming dialling devices is my speciality."

Spike didn't need to have read mission files to know from Ba'al's tone alone that he'd caused them some problems in the past with that particular field of expertise, but further discussion was cut off as Merlin suddenly sat up, Vala automatically moving to place her hands around his shoulders, helping him to sit up, his legs now over the side of the table as he stared uncertainly around him.

"Where... where am I?" the elderly Ancient muttered, his voice low from lack of use.

"Good question..." Sam admitted slightly awkwardly, prompting Merlin to turn and look in her direction, leaning forward slightly as he stared at her.

"You look... familiar..." he muttered, standing up and walking towards her, a smile spreading across his face as he spread his arms wide.

"Guinevere!" he said, his hands pressing against her shoulders as he hugged her to him, smiling broadly as he pulled back. "Oh, my dear, it's been too long..."

"Uh... it's... good to see you too," Sam said, nodding uncertainly back at him, clearly uncertain if she should bother correcting his misapprehension about her identity or not.

"Percival and Kay!" Merlin continued, looking over at Mitchell with a further smile before he turned to face Daniel, placing a friendly hand on his shoulder as he looked at the archaeologist. "And Galahad! Fortune does indeed smile upon me to see your faces again!"

"Hold on; I'm _Kay_?" Spike said, looking incredulously at Merlin. "I'm the guy who only got a seat because he was Arthur's adopted brother? That _sucks_-!"

"I hardly think that is an issue you should be concerned about, 'Spike'," Ba'al said, a mocking tone to his voice as he studied Merlin. "Looks like Merlin's drawbridge no longer goes all the way across the moat, if you catch my meaning."

"What's that?" Merlin said, turning to look hazily at Ba'al, an expression of contempt quickly settling on his features. "Mordred... I might have known it."

"We're wasting our time with this old fool!" Ba'al said "We need to get back to the gate so I can start reprogramming-"

"Be silent!" Merlin interjected, waving one hand at Ba'al dismissively, the Goa'uld continuing to move his mouth for a few seconds before realising that no sound was coming from his lips.

"Well, how do you like that?" Mitchell said, smiling briefly at the sight. "The old boy still has some tricks up his sleeve."

Spike may have seen more impressive things in his time with the Scoobies back in Sunnydale, but even he had to admit that what Merlin had just done was a neat trick, considering that the guy hadn't even needed to say a thing to cast the spell- there was a definite edge of _something _in the air to what remained active of Spike's supernatural senses in this form- and he'd only just 'woken up' after a long 'nap'.

"Merlin?" Daniel said, walking over to stand in front of the dazed Ancient. "Myrddin! We need you to remember; about the Sangraal, about Morgan, and about how you got _here_."

"Morgan..." Merlin muttered uncertainly.

"You also knew her as Ganos Lal," Daniel added promptingly.

"I haven't heard that name spoken in a very long time..." Merlin said, looking at him in an uncertain manner.

"We're not Knights of the Round Table," Daniel continued.

"Though we are flattered by the comparison," Mitchell added.

"Speak for yourself..." Spike muttered, rolling his eyes in frustration; only the sight of Ba'al fuming silently in the corner lifted his mood, particularly when he remembered how much the other guy had reminded him of Angelus at his worst.

"A thousand years have passed," Daniel continued, ignoring Spike's interruption. "We know who you really are, we know about Atlantis, and we've encountered the Ori."

Merlin stood in silence for a moment, until he finally seemed to focus as he looked at Daniel.

"Tell me more," he said intently.

"I... don't know where to begin," Daniel said after a moment's pause (Not that Spike could blame him; this wasn't exactly a situation that any of them had _planned _for). "This is going to take a while..."

"All right," Mitchell said, nodding briefly at the archaeologist, "we'll get started checking out the cave."

With that said, he turned to look at the still-silent Ba'al with a nonchalant shrug.

"Unless you have any objections to that?" Mitchell asked, smiling nonchalantly at Ba'al. "No? Great; move out."

As Spike watched his teammates move on into the cavern, he briefly thought about going on after them, but a quick glance at Merlin was all he needed to ignore that thought; even with his old relative disinterest in the mystical side of things, the chance to spend any kind of time with _the _wizard wasn't exactly something he felt overly inclined to pass up...


	29. The Wizard and the Vampire

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: A brief chapter, but it felt like a good place to break it off when I reached the end, and it still lays the foundation for some interesting future developments...

The Ghost in the Team

"...And it was Morgan who finally led us to you," Daniel said, looking solemnly at Merlin as he sat on the table alongside Vala, Merlin sitting contemplatively in the nearby chair while Spike stood at the other end of the table out of a lack of anything else to do. "Of course, she couldn't come right out and tell us; she had to be annoyingly cryptic about the whole thing."

"You have an unusual understanding of the way of Ascended Beings," Merlin noted, looking thoughtfully at the archaeologist.

"Yes, that's partly because I used to be one myself," Daniel replied, his tone sounding slightly embarrassed at the admission.

"Hold on; you were _what_?" Spike said, looking at Daniel incredulously. "You never mentioned _that_!"

"It was a long time ago, and I had a little help to get that far anyway," Daniel replied, looking between Merlin and Spike. "Her name was Oma Desala."

"Of course..." Merlin said, shaking his head in a manner of familiar resignation that put Spike briefly in mind of Angelus's reaction whenever Drusilla did some crazy stunt (Spike just made a mental note to ask about what had actually happened to get Daniel that far later; as much as he was curious to know how and why the other guy had become what sounded to him a lot like one of those 'Powers That Be' that the cheerleader got visions from these days, they had more obvious issues to tackle right now).

"And what happened?" the Ancient continued, his fingertips placed together once again as he redirected his gaze back at Daniel.

"Well," Daniel responded, looking briefly awkward before he continued. "I... I guess I didn't see eye-to-eye with the Others."

"The who?" Spike asked.

"It's the name we gave the other Ancients who don't agree with the more lenient philosophy of the Ancient who helped me Ascend," Daniel clarified, looking over at Spike after an apologetic glance at Merlin (Spike wondered if Merlin's acquiescing nod was because he was just patient or if he was using some of his freaky mind-powers to determine whether it was necessary for Daniel to tell Spike this). "They basically operate on a policy of _total _non-intervention no matter how bad things get, while the Ancients who worked with Oma were more willing to at least occasionally make contact with us so long as they didn't give us any significant help or information; one Ancient actually gave himself brain damage when he tried to help us by returning to human form while retaining his Ancient knowledge..."

"Who was this?" Merlin asked.

"Orlin," Daniel replied (Spike wondered at the slight edge to his friend's voice at the name, but figured that it wasn't worth mentioning; like the issue with that 'Oma' bird, he'd ask about that later).

"Ah," Merlin said, smiling slightly. "I should have known; he was one of the few who agreed with my actions at the time I began my work..."

For a moment, Merlin sat in silent contemplation of the past, before he turned his attention back to Daniel. "But you say that you 'guess' you did not agree with them; you do not know for certain what took place?"

"Well, I got the _impression_ that things didn't go well, but I don't really remember it," Daniel explained, a bitter tone to his voice as he spoke. "In order to protect me after I tried to use my powers to help my friends, Oma erased it all from my mind and sent me back."

"Oh..." Merlin said, sighing in exasperation as he stood up from his chair, rubbing his hands together as he spoke. "I'm surprised she still hasn't learned her lesson."

"She's not the only one who broke some of the rules," Vala pointed out, a pointed tone to her voice even if she didn't look directly at Merlin as she spoke.

"The Ori gain their power from the lower planes, so much so that one day they shall be strong enough to wipe The Others out," Merlin said, looking firmly at Vala. "In the face of such a threat, the strict policy of non-interference is absurd."

"I'm sure Oma would agree with you," Daniel noted (Another thing Spike would have to ask about later; if Oma was one of these Ascended, why did Daniel act like she wasn't here any more?).

"Oma concerns herself with the individual," Merlin responded slightly dismissively. "She may have the best intentions, but then, so did the Ori when they first began."

As though realising who he was addressing, Merlin paused in his speech as he looked somberly at Daniel.

"Still," he said, a solemn tone in his voice as he studied the archaeologist, "she must have seen something in you, to believe you to be worthy."

For a moment, the two men looked at each other in silence, a unique moment of understanding passing between them in 'recollection' of their mutual decision to forsake knowledge and power to help others, before Merlin broke it off as he turned to look at Spike.

"And... what is your history...?" he began, raising a prompting eyebrow at the vampire.

"Call me Spike; everyone does," Spike replied, hoping he could pull off the 'nonchalant' thing as well as he usually could; it wasn't exactly every day you met _Merlin_, after all. "As for what I am, I'm..."

He paused for a moment, before he finally shrugged and allowed his face to transform into its vampiric visage. "I'm a-"

"A _vampire_?" Merlin finished, sitting up to stare incredulously at Spike.

"Well, I'm a bit more complicated-" Spike tried to say.

"You _know _what he is?" Merlin said, glaring over at Daniel, obvious rage on his face. "You willingly consort with this _parasite_-?"

"Hey, just because I drink blood-!" Spike countered (He got that his diet wasn't exactly conventional, but it wasn't like he wasn't _trying _to be more socially acceptable; people didn't seem to appreciate how much of a shift it was to go from human to animal...).

"I was referring to your _nature_, not your _diet_!" Merlin interjected, still glaring at Spike. "You use the body of a dead man because you are unable to exist in this world on your own-!"

"Uh... if it makes any difference," Daniel said, looking awkwardly at the wizard in the face of his glare, "Spike _did _say that his... soul was restored to him about a year ago; he's not _exactly_ a conventional vampire..."

"What?" Merlin said, looking over at him in surprise, his rage forgotten in the face of this new information. "He... he _retains _his human essence?"

"Asked for it back over a year ago," Spike replied with a slight smile, before his face became more solemn as he looked at Merlin. "Don't deny that... what I remember 'bout getting it back is a bit hazy... and I screwed up once or twice afterwards anyway- a century of acting on instinct to kill people doesn't go away just because you don't _want_ to think like that any more-, but what I _do _know is that I'm not what I was before I got it; even if I could, I won't kill people for my own food."

"'Even if I could'...?" Merlin repeated in confusion, only for his eyes to widen in understanding as Spike waved his hand through a nearby table. "Ah, I see; you have been a victim of an unusual phase-shifting incident?"

"More like an unusual resurrection incident; some freaky amulet I was wearing to set off... a sort of explosion... ended up bringing me back like this after it burned me to bits, but-" Spike began.

"Yes, yes, a fascinating piece of work, I am sure- you were most likely drawn into the 'amulet' you were using when it set off that 'explosion' and were recorporealised when the conditions were right to do so-, but I wish to be clear on this," Merlin interjected, walking over to look at Spike with a contemplative smile. "You possess the physical strengths and weaknesses of your kind... but who _you _were before your transformation remains in control?"

"Best that I can tell, I've been merged with the demon that set up shop in my body after I became what I am- don't really think of myself as being any different personality-wise apart from the conscience thing, which could just be the result of the memory of what I did without it-, but that's basically it, yeah," Spike confirmed with a nod.

"Remarkable..." Merlin said, studying Spike with a smile. "Your kind found a way to do what we could not..."

"Actually, we did it twice; Spike's mentioned that a vampire relative of his also has a soul-" Vala began with a smile.

"Uh, sorry, could we... go back a few paces here?" Daniel asked, looking apologetically at Spike for a moment before he returned his attention to Merlin. "Are you saying that you... _know _about vampires?"

"If that is what you call this man's race, than yes," Merlin replied, a grim expression on his face as he looked back at Daniel. "Are you also aware of a similar race where their presence causes the host to become a mindless animal at a certain times-"

"Of the moon's passage over Earth, right?" Spike finished, nodding briefly at Merlin. "Yeah, we've got werewolves, zombies, demons, warlocks, all that stuff; stays underground most of the time, but it's still there."

"Ah," Merlin said, his head bowing briefly in silent contemplation even as he continued to address Spike. "And yet... even with the dangers of your kind... the world continues to endure..."

"Well... yeah, I guess," Spike said, looking awkwardly around the room for a moment, stuck for anything further to say about that particular topic, before Sam, Mitchell and Ba'al walked back through the cave entrance.

"This cave is a bust," Mitchell said. "There's nothing else here so far; Teal'c's keeping an eye out in case something else comes up."

He paused briefly as he noted Merlin's currently meditative pose, the white-bearded Ancient standing silently a short distance from his chair, showing no sign that he was aware of the presence of the new arrivals.

"Ah... how's it going?" Mitchell asked, awkwardly indicating the Ancient.

"I'm... not exactly sure," Daniel replied.

As though his comment was a signal, Merlin opened his eyes, a new resolution in his gaze as he took in the group around him.

"Before I agree to join with you," he said solemnly, "I need to know that you are willing to do whatever must be done to see it through."

"We've not exactly been for a walk in the park to get here, Merlin m-" Spike began, before he changed his mind virtually mid-sentence- he would _not _refer to the most powerful and famous wizard of all time as 'boy'!- and tried to continue like nothing had happened. "I think it's safe to say that we're not going to quit now."

"What you experienced so far is as nothing compared to what is to come," Merlin responded, a slightly bitter laugh to his tone as he looked at Spike.

As he exchanged glances with the rest of his new team- ignoring Ba'al for obvious reasons; that git's opinion didn't count even if he could voice it-, Spike wasn't sure if he should feel proud or exasperated at the resolution they all showed; how did a vampire end up with _these _kind of heroes for friends?

"Don't worry about us," Mitchell said at last. "We're on board."

"In that case," Merlin said, nodding in approval, "there's much work to be done."

With that, Merlin turned around and walked over to the knowledge download device that Vala had activated earlier and placed his hands below it, causing two lighted handle-like devices to extend to his hands. The portion that had previously tried to 'grab' Vala's head also extended outwards to settle into position around Merlin's head and face, the device emitting a turquoise-coloured light as the circular metal table Spike had noticed earlier lit up, holograms of various small patterns appearing above it as SG-1 watched.

"So..." Spike asked after a few moments had passed and Merlin showed no sign of doing anything else, looking uncertainly over at his teammates. "What now?"

"Now?" Mitchell said, shrugging slightly as he sat down in a nearby chair. "Wait, I guess; I get the impression that we're not going to get much more out of him if we try talking to him right now..."

"Right then," Vala said, smiling slightly as she sat down near to where Spike was currently standing. "So, as long as we're not doing anything, who wants to start off the story-telling?"


	30. The Death of a Legend

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

"So..." Spike asked after listening to a few of his team's more interesting tales about their victories over some Goa'uld in the past- the idea that they'd blown up a _sun _to stop a guy's fleet was a bit disturbing, even if he trusted that they would have made sure the sun wasn't in an inhabited solar system-, deciding that now was as good a time as any to ask a question that had been bothering him for a while, "what happened to that 'Oma' bird you mentioned to Merlin?"

"Well, that's a... bit of a complicated story," Daniel said, after briefly exchanging glances with the rest of the team before turning back to face Spike. "Have we told you about... Anubis?"

"Apart from some brief thing about the guy attacking Earth once... no, you haven't," Spike confirmed after a brief moment of reflection, looking curiously at his friends. "Who was he?"

"Well, that's... a bit complicated, really," Daniel replied. "He was originally a Goa'uld, but through some chain of events we aren't sure of, he discovered some ancient texts about Ascension, and was able to make contact with Oma Desala- an Ascended who's occasionally helped others learn how to Ascend herself; she's essentially the figure we've come to think of in mythology as 'Mother Earth'- and managed to trick her into helping him Ascend-"

"Hold on; a _Goa'uld _learned how to _Ascend_?" Spike repeated, his eyes widening incredulously at the news. "As in, one of _those _genocidal egotistical maniacs reached a god-like level of existence?"

"Yes and no," Daniel replied. "The other Ancients quickly realised what Anubis was and stripped him of _most _of his Ascended power, but to punish Oma for her mistake, they allowed Anubis to continue to exist in a partly Ascended state; he needed to use a force field to interact with others and give himself some kind of physical form unless he directly used someone as a host- and if he took someone as a host by possessing them, the body would eventually die due to the hostile reaction Anubis caused to their immune system-, but he couldn't actually be killed himself, and he'd also be able to use any Ancient technology he encountered. The only thing he was explicitly forbidden from doing was using any knowledge or power he couldn't have acquired as a normal Goa'uld, and even then he managed to find some ways around it; my best guess is that he directed his ships to locations where he 'knew' he'd find Ancient technology without deliberately directing his followers to specific planets..."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding slightly as he looked between his friends. "And... I take it all that made him pretty powerful?"

"You could say that," Sam confirmed. "He managed to use some of the Ancient technology he discovered to almost destroy us by setting the Stargate to overload, and on another occasion he discovered how to use an Ancient healing device to create a race of virtually indestructible drones to replace the Jaffa as his servants; we managed to stop him for a time by trapping his current host on an ice planet with a broken DHD- Ba'al actually took over some of his territory and resources during that time-, but he eventually got off the planet and tried to activate an Ancient weapon that would destroy all life in the galaxy-"

"Hold on; they invented something that could do _that_?" Spike repeated, staring incredulously at his friends. "Why the Hell'd they do something that _stupid_?"

"It is believed that the weapon was originally created in order to restore life to the galaxy after the Ancients indirectly spread a fatal plague throughout the galaxy that we believe was created by the Ori," Teal'c explained. "The Ancients were able to escape the plague by Ascending, but the weapon allowed them to restart life across the universe after they had done so, and thus undo the damage that the plague had caused. The weapon was then concealed for several centuries until we discovered its location in the temple of Dakara-"

"Oh, so _that's _where that thing came from?" Spike asked, snapping his fingers as he smiled at the Jaffa, before his expression became curious once again. "So... how'd you stop him?"

"That's where Oma's fate comes in," Daniel explained. "How it happened is a complicated story, but I ended up in a 'midway point' between Ascension and this plane of existence after I was nearly killed, where I encountered Oma and Anubis as Anubis was preparing to activate the weapon after we activated it to defeat a machine-race known as the Replicators. I was able to persuade Oma that she had to do something about Anubis, and she engaged him in battle before he could complete his plan."

"And destroyed him?" Spike asked.

"Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that," Daniel replied, a more subdued expression on his face now. "Due to Anubis's Ascended nature, Oma couldn't actually do anything while he was still on the lower planes as he would have been... well, 'outside her jurisdiction' is probably the best way to describe it... but by allowing him to Ascend to her level, she was able to engage him in permanent battle on the higher planes; he can't kill her and she can't kill him, but since he's focusing all of his energy on fighting against her..."

"He _can't _spare the time to do anything else?" Spike finished, shaking his head as he looked upwards with a grim smile; even his demon had to admire someone who'd dedicate eternity to fighting one guy for the sake of everyone else. "_Damn_... sounds like a pretty gutsy woman."

"She was definitely... dedicated," Daniel said, nodding slightly at the memory of the woman in question (Spike thought about making a joke, but decided against it; not only was Ba'al a real mood-killer, but Daniel's attitude when talking about this 'Oma' bird put him more in mind of Buffy's early relationship with Rupert- student respecting a teacher they didn't always agree with- rather than anyone who thought about the other person in a _romantic _sense).

Spike wished that he'd been able to reciprocate their tales with some of his own, but with Ba'al present Spike had a distinct feeling that giving that guy any information about vampires would be a bad idea, even if it wasn't likely the guy would be able to use any of it...

"So," Vala asked, looking uncertainly between Daniel and Merlin as she finally broke the near-taboo that the group had apparently been working under by asking the question that had been on their minds since their new associate had started his work, "he's been at this for hours; wanna take a guess at what he's doing?"

"Well," Daniel replied, studying the hologram that was still being generated above the platform, showing molecules moving and joining with each other, "from the looks of it, I'd say he's virtually piecing something together from base molecules."

"Another Sangraal?" Sam asked.

"What _else _would he be making?" Spike asked, shrugging slightly as he looked back at Sam; he might be new to this whole mess, but he couldn't think of anything else that Merlin could be doing with his time right now.

Before anyone could speculate any further on Merlin's current activities, the Ancient stepped back from the device with evident fatigue in his stance, forcing Sam and Daniel to hurry over and grab his arms before he could hit the ground.

"Thank you," Merlin said, his voice sounding uncomfortably fatigued for a man of his age given Spike's personal experience with the elderly. "I'm fine; I just... I just needed a rest..."

Just as Merlin was being lowered into a seat, the entire room seemed to shimmer and glow around them, and suddenly Spike found himself standing alone in the chamber.

"What the-?" he began, only to double over as he suddenly felt like something was trying to pull his spine out through his head-

* * *

"Not _again_!" he groaned as the pain ceased, leaving him standing in apparently the same room as they'd been in earlier (If he ever got a chance to talk with whatever higher power had linked him to that amulet, they were going to have _words_; did it have to _hurt _so damn much when he was dragged away from the thing?).

"What...?" Merlin began, looking at Spike in slightly weak confusion.

"That's a long and complicated story that this isn't the time for right now," Mitchell interjected in a low voice- Ba'al was looking the other way and didn't seem to have noticed the circumstances of Spike's arrival, but there was no point drawing attention to anything unless he had to- before he looked at the rest of the team. "What actually happened?"

"_Colonels Mitchell and Carter_," Teal'c's voice said over the radio, "_come quickly. You will want to see this_."

Glancing around herself, Sam nodded briefly at Vala before allowing the dark-haired woman to take hold of Merlin's left arm, Sam subsequently heading for the cave exit as Mitchell tapped Ba'al on the shoulder.

"Let's go," he said, the two lieutenant colonels hurrying down the passage as Ba'al followed in resignation.

"I'll... go with them, huh?" Spike said, shrugging slightly as he looked at Daniel and Vala; as much as he wanted to ask Merlin what the guy had meant by all that stuff about the origin of the supernatural, he didn't want to give himself the temptation to bother the guy with irrelevant questions given how tired he looked and the importance of what he had to do.

As he hurried along the corridor after his teammates- taking care to avoid going _through _anything; if he didn't want Ba'al to learn what was odd about him, he had to get into the habit of not walking through things while the guy wasn't watching him so that it would look more natural to do it when he _was _being watched-, Spike quickly found himself standing alongside his new friends and the ex-System Lord at the cave entrance. However, in contrast to the desert scene that had been described to him earlier, the current planet was dark, cold, and windy with snow flurries, with no indication that there had been any sun or sand here just moments before.

"What the _Hell_?" Spike asked, looking at the world around himself in confusion before he focused his attention on Teal'c. "I thought you said we were on a _desert _planet?"

"We were," Teal'c replied. "A few moments ago, the gate activated on its own. The crystal on the obelisk began to glow, and then everything changed."

"_That's _putting it mildly..." Spike muttered.

"We've been transported to another planet," Mitchell concluded.

"Well," Sam said, raising her voice slightly as they walked further out of the cave and the wind began to pick up, "if Daniel's right and Morgan wanted to keep Merlin hidden, this would be a great way to do it. My guess is, we're traveling through a circuit of planets, cut off from the rest of the gate system by a deliberate alteration of the DHD program."

"Then you believe we will be unable to dial out from this gate as well," Teal'c said.

"Well, we can give it a shot, but yeah, I doubt it'll work," Sam confirmed

"Until we find the automatic dialling program in the DHD processor and shut it down."

"You can do that, right?" Mitchell asked.

"I hope so," Sam said, after a too-long hesitation that Spike didn't need his long experience with people to know that she wasn't really that sure about the answer. To her credit, she didn't allow that doubt to show in her actions, but simply walked over to the mushroom-esque DHD in front of the Stargate and the obelisk just behind it as she began to work.

"Well," Spike said, glancing back at Mitchell, "you lot stay here; I'll just... go back and see how Merlin's doing, OK?"

He didn't bother to wait for a response, but turned around and began to hurry back down the corridor towards the main chamber; with snow blowing around out there, he didn't want to stick around and risk Ba'al noticing that he wasn't getting any _on _him. Cutting through a few rocks as he went, Spike made it back to the cavern just in time to see Merlin getting back up from the chair where he'd been sitting earlier and take up position in front of his modified Repository thing, Daniel and Vala just behind him as he turned to look at them.

"Good luck, Doctor Jackson," Merlin said.

With that, he turned back to face the machine in front of him and activated the device once again. For a moment, it seemed to be operating like it had before, only for the green light that it had been emitting earlier to be replaced by a bright white light that enveloped most of Merlin's head. The light had flared only for a moment before something suddenly thrust Merlin away from the device, the Ancient falling to the floor before anyone could reach him as the light shut down.

"What the _Hell_?" Spike yelled, hurrying over to join Daniel and Vala as they crouched around the fallen Ancient, Merlin taking a single last breath before he stopped.

"Oh, _bugger_," Spike said, looking over at Daniel. "_Please _tell me he's not...?"

In response, Daniel placed his fingers against Merlin's neck, only to look back up at the vampire with a grim expression.

"He's dead," the archaeologist said.

"_Shit_..." Spike muttered, turning around to stick his head in the rock wall behind him.

Just _once_, couldn't someone cut them a sodding break? It seemed like every time they had to deal with the really powerful crap, the people who knew what they were doing and could make the damn fight that bit easier- the Order of Dagon, that 'Guardian' woman who'd helped Buffy track down the Scythe, maybe that Walsh bitch (She'd been nuts, but she'd created Adam; she might've been able to help them work out a way to stop him/it if she'd stayed alive long enough)- had to go and die on them...

* * *

A few minutes later, Merlin's body lay on the table where he'd rested earlier- poor location for the greatest wizard of all time to be 'laid to rest', but they couldn't do much else with this planet's icy condition making it hard to do anything in the way of digging-, arms crossed over his chest as SG-1 and Ba'al stood around the room, each of them trying to take in what had just happened.

"He said 'Good luck'?" Sam asked, clearly unable to believe that those had been the last words the man they'd tried to find for so long had delivered to the rest of the universe.

"Very strange," Vala confirmed, rubbing her head with her fingers as she lay slumped in a chair. "It's almost as if he knew it was going to happen."

"Which leaves us with no Sangraal, and, for the moment, no way off this planet," Mitchell said, his voice low and his tone equally grim.

"I told you I can fix the dialling device," Ba'al suddenly said from his position leaning against the device that had projected Merlin's hologram earlier.

"Oh, _bugger_," Spike groaned, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "As if the situation wasn't crap enough, now you're _talking _again?"

"Merlin's little trick with my vocal cords expired at the same moment he did," Ba'al commented with a smug smirk that reminded Spike of a bearded Angelus.

"Yet another reason to mourn his passing," Teal'c noted.

"I second _that _emotion, buddy," Spike confirmed, looking scathingly at Ba'al. "I've barely known you a couple of hours and I already _know _that I preferred you silent."

"Joke all you want... Spike," Ba'al said, an expression on his face that made it clear that he was still wondering what Spike was doing with the rest of SG-1, "but I am the only one who can get us out of here."

"He is good with dialling programs," Sam said to Mitchell in a low voice that she clearly didn't want Ba'al to hear. "Maybe if we worked together..."

After a moment of contemplation, Mitchell nodded in resignation.

"_Fine_," he said, indicating the door. "Teal'c, you're with me and Sam; Jackson, you, Vala and Spike see if you can find anything around here that we can use to... do _something_, OK?"

Spike didn't even bother to make a disparaging comment to that last statement; right now, he was just trying to stop himself from 'vamping out' and trying to unleash his frustration and rage on the world around him, even if his best efforts at concentration would be nowhere near sufficient to do the kind of damage he'd need to do to vent all of his anger.

God... he'd had a chance to talk with _Merlin_ about the origin of magic, and he'd _completely _lost it...

"He said he had one more thing to do before he could rest," Daniel said, breaking Spike's bleak mood after a few moments had passed.

"In case you hadn't noticed, he didn't exactly _do _that-!" Spike began.

"No, that doesn't fit anything; if he knew he had that little time available to him, trying to complete the weapon doesn't make sense," Daniel elaborated, as he walked over to study the device in front of him. "As I've said, this looks like the usual Ancient repositories we've found that were used to download all the knowledge of the Ancients into someone's mind, even if it doubles up as a user-interfaced design program. Both times that Jack- General O'Neill- tried to use them, it nearly destroyed his mind because his brain just wasn't equipped to cope with that kind of knowledge..."

He paused for a moment, contemplatively studying the device on the wall before him, before he spoke again. "But what if you could control it?"

"Control it?" Spike repeated uncertainly.

"You know, instead of using it to store _all _the knowledge of the Ancients, you use it to store something... more specific," Daniel finished.

"Like?" Vala asked, voicing the thought that was on her and Spike's minds.

"I'm not sure..." Daniel said, looking back at Merlin's body. Spike had just turned to look at the dead Ancient when he noted movement out of the corner of his eye, turning back just in time to see Daniel take hold of the device's handles and position himself in front of its 'mouth' as the green light shone once again.

"What the _bloody_-!" Spike began, only to halt himself mid-sentence as a white light began to envelop Daniel's head; he didn't know much about Ancient tech, but he was fairly sure that interrupting something that was doing something to another guy's head would _not _be on the list of 'smart things to do with Ancient tech'...

Fortunately, the decision on what to do was taken out of his hands when Daniel was sent flying away from the device just like Merlin had been, forcing Vala to get down on her knees and lift his body up so that it was resting against her, moving to activate her radio after she'd moved the archaeologist into a possibly comfortable position.

"Vala here," she said anxiously. "I'm going to need some help."

"_What is it_?" Mitchell's voice responded.

"It's Daniel," Vala replied, swallowing slightly as she looked anxiously up at Spike.

The vampire and the ex-thief only had to wait a few more moments before the lieutenant colonel came hurrying into the room, looking urgently at the still-unconscious archaeologist.

"Jackson?" he asked, crouching down beside Vala as he looked at the archaeologist in exasperation. "Jackson!"

When his yells met with no response, he turned his attention to the other two members of SG-1 still in the room. "What did he do?"

"Stuck his head in that thing, got hit by a big glow of some sort, and then..." Spike said, shrugging awkwardly at his inability to provide further details. "Hey, my knowledge of technology just goes up to what I need to know to work a mobile, and even _that's _pretty much useless to me now!"

"_Great_..." Mitchell groaned, leaning with one hand against the wall as he looked at the unconscious archaeologist in frustration. "Merlin's dead, we're completely cut from the rest of the galaxy, our best hope of getting out of here's a guy who'd be happy to kill us under normal circumstances, and the only guy who knows how to read Ancient's gone and knocked himself out and we don't even know what _caused_ it..."

"Oh, thank you very much, Mitchell; go on about how _screwed _we are!" Spike groaned, walking over to glare at the lieutenant colonel. "You know, I may not have been the cheeriest sod back in the day, but at least I didn't _repeat _the problem-!"

"Look, I'm just tryin' to figure out a way out of this; if you've got a better idea-" Mitchell began, before a new burst of white light filled the room once again, fading to leave only Spike and Merlin's body in the room.

"Not agaiAARRGGHH!" Spike began, bending over as he felt the increasingly-familiar yank at what would have been his insides if he'd still have a body to have internal organs-

* * *

Followed by the disorientating feeling of landing somewhere else that looked exactly the same as where he'd been earlier, with only the absence of Merlin's body to provide any indication that he'd moved somewhere else.

"_Damnit_!" Spike yelled, before a sudden groan from Daniel prompted him to glance over in his friend's direction.

"You're awake?" Vala said, smiling encouragingly at the archaeologist as he sat up, rubbing the bridge of his nose with one hand as he looked uncertainly at the three people around him.

"OK, am I the only one worried about the fact that we've apparently jumped to _another _planet in this freaky system?" Mitchell asked, indicating their surroundings in exasperation before he activated his radio. "Sam, where are we now?"

"_Well, on the bright side, this planet's a bit warmer than the last one, even if it's a bit spookier; I might be able to get some work done without Ba'al complaining now_," Sam's voice replied. "_How's Daniel_?"

"He's... sitting up," Mitchell replied, looking grimly over at the archaeologist as Vala helped him into a chair. "I'll... get back to you on the rest."

"Danny-boy?" Spike asked, walking over to crouch down beside his new friend, Daniel removing his glasses and placing them in a pocket of his vest with one hand as he held his head up with the other. "You OK?"

"Here," Vala put in, reaching for a canteen as Mitchell joined Spike in crouching, although the lieutenant-colonel took up position on Daniel's other side.

"How you doing, sunshine?" the colonel asked.

As soon as he'd spoken, Daniel turned to look at him, blinking slowly as he took in the other man's face, apparently trying to place where he'd seen it before.

"He was right," he said at last, smiling briefly as he looked at the colonel. "You do look like Percival."

"What?" Spike asked, trying not to make it too obvious how thrown he was by this sudden change in the conversation.

"Excuse me?" Mitchell asked, clearly just as confused by this turn of events as Spike was.

"We spent a lot of time in this room," Daniel said, his eyes drifting upwards contemplatively.

"Who did?" Vala asked, exchanging worried glances with Cam and Spike.

"We did," Daniel began, before he closed his eyes and corrected him. "He did. Merlin."

Apparently unaware of the concern his last comments had generated in his friends, Daniel let out a slight chuckle. "Sorry, it's a little confusing having two sets of memories in your head. He wasn't kidding about living many lifetimes."

With that statement, Daniel grabbed Mitchell's shoulder with one hand and hauled himself back onto his feet, nearly walking through Spike as he took a few steps.

"Hold on; you're saying that you've got _Merlin's memories_?" Spike said, looking incredulously at Daniel.

"Some of them," Daniel clarified, placing a finger against his forehead as he walked. "Earth, Atlantis, and the different medieval societies he set up throughout the galaxy... and the work he did in this lab."

"Hey, whoa, hey, hey, hang on a second," Mitchell interjected, as Daniel looked thoughtfully at the room around him. "Are you telling me you can build the Sangraal?"

"He knew he didn't have the strength to finish it- his body had deteriorated too much during the stasis-, so he gave me the knowledge," Daniel explained, walking past his teammates to take up position in front of the device once again. With that explanation, Daniel placed his hands on the handles and activated the device, the green light illuminating his face once again as holographic images reappeared above the table.

"Wait!" Mitchell yelled, just before the holograms started to come together above the table, a circular shape quickly forming as the group spoke.

"I can see it now," Daniel said, his tone almost reverential as he began his work. "I can do this."

After glancing awkwardly around himself for a moment, Mitchell turned around and walked to a position a few feet away from Daniel, subtly beckoning Spike and Vala to come over and join him.

"_Twice_ a device like that almost killed General O'Neill," the lieutenant colonel explained, apprehension clear in his voice as he looked back at the archaeologist. "Both times, it took the _Asgard_ to save him."

"Daniel thought that this device might be different," Vala replied, a hopeful tone in her own voice. "That somehow the information could be limited."

"I hope he's right..." Mitchell muttered grimly, as the three of them looked back at the assembling pieces in the hologram above them.

Spike might be hopelessly out of his depth right now- even if a part of him was still hoping that whatever parts of Merlin were in Daniel would include an explanation for the guy's knowledge of magic and demons that he could tell Spike when this mess was over-, but that didn't mean he wasn't aware of the risks; if things went pear-shaped with Merlin's last gambit, they _really _didn't have the time or ability to call anyone for help...


	31. Construction of the Grail

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

As time went by, Spike wasn't sure if he should feel grateful or apprehensive at the fact that things seemed to be going well for Daniel so far; whatever this 'Sangraal' thing was meant to look like in the end- since Spike was fairly sure nobody would design a weapon that could kill god-like beings to look like a cup, he was a bit stuck on how this thing became the basis for the Holy Grail myth-, Daniel had already created a large disk-shaped object from various projected components. As the other three watched, the object settled down onto the top of the platform, glowed, and then changed from its original state of gold transparency to a more solid-looking grey, the machine subsequently deactivating as Daniel stepped away, rubbing his eyes and stumbling a bit.

"What is that?" Mitchell asked, standing slightly straighter as he looked at the object before them.

"Stage one," Daniel replied, walking over to examine the object he had just created, his voice slightly worryingly fast. "The first step towards creating Merlin's weapon."

"It's real?" Vala asked.

"Yeah," Daniel confirmed, his breathing heavy as Vala reached out to touch it, her fingers meeting a solid object. "That's exactly what this device does. It allows you to design and configure something virtually and then materializes it."

"So... you _think_ it into existence?" Spike asked, looking back at the object that Daniel had been using with a renewed respect. "Now _that _is something..."

"Can't you do the same with... magic?" Mitchell asked, looking uncertainly at the vampire, clearly uncertain if the word was accurate even if his curiosity overruled his uncertainty.

"Not me _personally_, I should clarify- I never really had the patience to get a good handle on the 'how-to' of magic; only time I ever tried something myself was when I was trying to save Dru with this ritual after a mob in Prague nearly killed her, and I had other people putting the stuff together then anyway-, but a few people _could _create a few things if they wanted to; from what a few people I know told me, it's just a bit tricky to pull that kind of thing off for anything _really _complicated when you don't have something to start with..."

"Huh," Mitchell said, nodding briefly as he took in the vampire's comment while thoughtfully studying the object before them. "Guess that's one thing we can do that magic can't; General O'Neill did something similar to this when he created the first anti-Replicator weapon."

"I thought the Sangraal was a tiny red jewel?" Vala asked.

"No, that's the- that's the final stage, the key to making the whole thing work," Daniel clarified.

"So," Mitchell asked, walking around the platform to take in what had just been created, "how long before you can put the whole thing together?"

Much to Spike's concern, Daniel didn't reply; he just leaned against the platform, raising a hand to his face as though he was trying to fight off a headache.

"Daniel?" Vala asked, turning to take his arm as she looked anxiously at him.

"No, I'm all right, I'm all right," Daniel replied, unzipping his vest as his eyes narrowed, as though he was having trouble focusing. "It's just... this machine takes a lot out of you. The uh, level of concentration required is pretty intense."

"Well, at least that's _something _this thing has in common with spellwork..." Spike muttered.

"Concentration a must when you're manipulating the world that way, huh?" Mitchell asked with a slight smile as he glanced over at the vampire.

"Let me put it this way; some guy tried to get a witch to cast a love spell once as a joke- bit of a tasteless joke, but the principle wasn't bad; girlfriend had dumped him and he wanted to reject her right back-, and the caster's inexperience meant that everyone in town _except _the girl he'd 'targeted' was obsessively in love with him until the spell got cancelled," Spike clarified, before he shook his head with a wistful smile at the memory. "From what I heard, there was a bunch of bloody riots as they all tried to kill the sod so that nobody else could have him before the spell was shut off..."

Noting the pointed stares coming from the other three, Spike could only shrug helplessly. "Hey, I was evil back then; can I _help _it if I _remember _finding that whole mess funny?"

"You knew some... interesting spell-casters, Spike," Daniel said, his voice sounding somehow deeper than usual before he shook his head. "Uh... what just happened?"

"Can I get you anything?" Vala asked, clearly hoping to divert Daniel's current train of thought on to a more immediate topic; clearly her mind had jumped to the same conclusion that Spike had to account for Daniel's last comment, and she didn't like it any more than he did.

"Water," Daniel replied briefly.

"Sure," Vala said, turning around to walk back to the table where she'd left a water-bottle earlier. Just as she was about to pick it up, Daniel turned around, reached out with one hand, and the canteen flew into it, leaving Spike to simply blink in surprise as Mitchell stared at the sight in shock.

"Bloody hell..." Spike muttered.

He was aware of the concept of the X-Men as much as anyone in the modern world, but reading stories about people 'evolving' to a point where they could do that kind of thing without magic and _seeing _it were two different things...

"OK," Daniel said, unscrewing the cap as he spoke, "that happened."

Glancing over at Mitchell and Vala, Spike was grateful to see that they were just as surprised as he was; at least this kind of thing was new to _them _ as well.

"It's interesting," Daniel said, with that frustrating tone that Spike recognised from when the Watcher was about to mention something that didn't really mean anything beyond an academic application, "Jack got healing powers; I guess I got telekinesis."

"Jack also almost died!" Vala said, looking urgently at Daniel as he took a drink from the canteen. "Now you said that this device _might _be different!"

"I'll be fine-" Daniel began.

"That's crap!" Mitchell interjected. "She's right, you don't get fancy mind powers unless there has been major _redecorating_ going on inside your skull!"

"Look, obviously, creating the weapon requires a higher level of brain function; now, Merlin would have foreseen that," Daniel replied. "Trust me, I can _handle_ this."

As he watched his friend take another drink of water, Spike wondered if this was an appropriate time to bring up Red's magical addiction, or if it would just be an academic topic that didn't really apply here; if nothing else, Daniel definitely _needed _to use whatever powers he'd picked up in that download if they were going to complete the Sangraal now, and it wasn't like he'd done that _deliberately_...

He just hoped that Merlin's powers came with Merlin's wisdom included; after the stories he'd heard about what 'Darth Willow' had nearly done after Tara's death while he'd been away in Africa, the last thing he wanted was for Daniel (Somehow he just couldn't think of the archaeologist as 'Danny-boy' or something like that; maybe it was because he seemed so much more _together _than most of the people he'd been spending time with over the last few years) to go on a power trip...

* * *

A couple of hours later, Daniel had resumed his work on the Sangraal while the others sat around the room, unable to do much more than wait as Daniel continued his work; Spike had nipped out earlier to see how things were coming along at the Stargate, but aside from Ba'al being frustratingly arrogant unless his life was threatened there wasn't really anything he could usefully contribute there.

"Stage two," Mitchell noted grimly, as another disc-shaped device lowered itself on top of the original component, leaving it looking more like a half-oval rather than the ring-like design it had appeared to be earlier.

"Indeed," Daniel said, stepping back from the machine. "I must rest. I'm not as young as I used to be."

Spike wasn't sure how he should feel about Daniel's halting walk as he moved back to the divan; Merlin getting more control might be a good thing as far as Daniel's ability to control his powers went, but that didn't mean he _wanted _the guy to be essentially possessed.

"You OK there, Danny?" he asked, walking over to look uncertainly at his friend.

"I'm... I'm fine..." Daniel said, his voice low as he looked awkwardly around himself. "I had the strangest dream... everything was covered in ice..."

_Oh, _bugger... Spike thought to himself, exchanging anxious glances with Mitchell and Vala as Daniel's expression became slightly glazed, clearly lost in past memories that almost certainly weren't his own...

"Jackson!" Mitchell called over to the archaeologist, walking over to touch him on the shoulder when Daniel continued to simply stare outward at nothing in particular. "Daniel."

The archaeologist's initial flinch in response to the physical contact wasn't exactly encouraging, but it did seem to bring him back to himself, his eyes opening wider once again.

"What's going on?" he asked, looking around himself before Vala pulled his face back towards her.

"We're losing you, that's what's going on," she said, staring desperately at him. "Every time you come back from that machine, it gets a little worse. And don't tell me you're fine."

"No, no," Daniel said, shaking his head slightly. "I just have too many thoughts in my head... I-I can't concentrate; I get confused.

"Just hold it together, Dan-" Spike began.

"No, no, no!" Daniel said, his fingers to his temples as though he was trying to keep his head together. "That's the thing; I have to let it happen. That's the only way I can build Merlin's weapon."

Under normal circumstances, Spike wondered if he should be jealous about the obvious concern on Vala's face at the thought of something happening to Daniel, but given how his previous relationship had fallen apart because of their communication difficulties- he wouldn't think about what had _really _happened to make Buffy break it off with him; even his _demon _hated thinking about that-, he wouldn't waste time worrying about that now; Vala had been the one to suggest that they _start _this relationship, so he wouldn't assume that she wanted anything to do with Daniel unless he saw something _really _'incriminating'.

As it was, he simply stood off to the side in silence as Daniel walked back towards the machine, Mitchell giving the archaeologist a brief pat on the back as he went past him while Vala could do nothing but stare.

"You have to tell him that he doesn't have to do this," Vala said, looking urgently over at Mitchell. "He'll listen to you."

"And then what?" Spike asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked over at Vala, speaking up before Mitchell could contribute anything to the conversation himself. "I get that I'm new here, but I think that I've got the basics of the current mess down pat; we need to stop the Ori, and this thing Daniel's making's the only way to do that."

"What makes you think we'll even be allowed to use it?" Vala countered. "The Ancients didn't let Merlin get away with it last time-!"

"Vala," Mitchell said, raising a finger as he looked between the two, "shut up. For once. We have to take the risk."

"Sometimes," Spike noted, looking grimly over at Daniel, "what _really_ sucks in this kind of situation isn't knowing that _you're _going to die if something goes wrong; what sucks is that knowing that, if things don't go the way you want them to go, _other _people are going to die..."

For a moment, the three stood in silent contemplation, until Vala turned to look at Spike.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Long story short, there was this loony a couple of years back who tried to do some ritual that could've destroyed the world if it'd worked," Spike explained. "If we weren't able to stop the ritual before it was finished, one of us would've had to die to stop everything collapsing..."

He didn't bother to finish the sentence- talking about Buffy's death and resurrection would just open up the possibility of a whole mess of questions that he was sure nobody would have the time for and that he didn't exactly feel comfortable answering anyway-, but the relevance of what he was saying was obvious to both of his new teammates.

"That's what sucks about being on a team," Mitchell said, looking at Vala after the other two had taken a moment to process what Spike had just told them. "It's not risking your own life; it's watching others risk- hell, sometimes even sacrifice- theirs."

Spike had to admit that he got where Mitchell was coming from; even when he thought that he was going to die after he put that amulet on in the final battle against the First, it had been a hell of a lot easier knowing that Buffy was going to make it out than it had been to see her dead body after she'd jumped through that portal to save Dawn from Glory's mess...

"Congratulations," Mitchell said, nodding grimly at Vala. "Now you really are one of us."

He glanced over at Spike. "And looks like you already got that before you even got here, so I'd say that just makes you eminently suited for a job here."

"First time anyone ever said I was _qualified _for anything..." Spike muttered, glancing over at Daniel with a grimly thoughtful expression.

He had to admit, this was definitely one occasion when he was _not _that keen on being the right person in the right place, and he couldn't even really _do _anything to help Vala feel better; she wasn't in the mood for talking right now, and he wasn't comfortable with his ability to concentrate enough to give her something to hug...

If the situation hadn't been so grim, Spike would have smiled.

When he started wishing he could just _hug _Vala, he _knew _he'd gone a bit soft...

They'd only spent a few moments waiting before Daniel ceased his work on the machine, with no sign of a new component to attach to the rest and a clearly worried expression on Daniel's face as he looked over at the others.

"What is it?" Mitchell asked uncertainly.

"Get to the gate, now," Daniel said.

"Why?" Mitchell asked, before the near-terrified expression on Daniel's face as he turned away from the machine to look at them answered any questions that they might have had.

"They're coming," he said.

There was nothing else to say to that; with that statement, Spike turned and hurried down the caverns towards the Stargate, Vala and Mitchell close behind him. As he emerged from the caves, Spike only had a few moments to take in the sight before him- Ba'al lying on the ground, hopefully dead, while a bunch of people Spike would be willing to bet were Ori soldiers were gathered around and coming out of the Stargate, Sam behind the obelisk while Teal'c was at the front with his weapon raised- before he sprang into action, charging towards the nearest soldier as he tried to focus his attention on knocking down his latest opponent.

The resulting attack wasn't perfect, of course- even with whatever meditation advice Daniel and Teal'c had provided for him, Spike still found it hard to remain solid for long, and the stress of the current situation definitely wasn't helping his focus-, but it was enough to knock the soldier to the ground as his head connected with a rock behind him with a fairly solid crack, the wound an obviously fatal one even before Spike saw the blood that resulted from the wound.

He wouldn't like to keep on trying to pull off that trick in a long-term fight, of course- these guys might be fanatics devoted to a fake religion, but they didn't get this far by being stupid; they weren't going to keep letting him get close enough to charge them like that-, but if he just focused on the brief contact that he _could_ make, he might have a chance...

As Vala and Mitchell emerged from the cavern to open fire on their new enemies, Spike tried to stay on the move while also staying away from his teammates- he could probably distract the Ori forces if he kept on the go, but he didn't want to accidentally position himself so that they tried to shoot him and ended up shooting someone _behind _him-, but it quickly became obvious that numbers were against him; quite a few people had come through the Stargate by now, and there were only so many places that he could go in the immediate area without getting in the way of the people who were meant to be on _his _side...

Spike's attempt to come up with a plan were cut short when clouds began to gather above them in a sky that had been clear only a few moments ago, energy crackling above them before lighting came down from the sky, striking the soldiers gathered around the now-deactivated Stargate until all of them were lying on the ground.

"Bloody hell..." Spike muttered, his eyes widening in apprehension as he took in what had just happened.

* * *

"Was that... Daniel?" Sam asked, looking over at the vampire, who was now standing close to the Stargate where a couple of the soldiers had taken up a position earlier; it might not be entirely the same thing as the magic he encountered, but right now Spike was the closest thing they had to a source who could tell them what Daniel might be capable of.

"Unless you've got another sod with a great magical rep hanging around here that I don't know about, probably," Spike replied, the tension in his stance making it clear that he was trying not to show just how much what had happened had disturbed him. "I mean, I've heard about a couple of witches and the like who could control the weather to a degree, but being able to summon and _control _the lightning like that, without even being here to _see _the targets that he's attacking with it..."

"It is indeed impressive," Teal'c commented, nodding in understanding at Spike. "Merlin clearly lives up to his reputation, whichever body he is in."

"Look, whatever that was, we probably shouldn't worry about looking gift horses in their mouths," Mitchell said, looking urgently between his teammates. "Right now, we need to dial out of here before anyone else can-"

The rest of Mitchell's statement was cut short when Daniel suddenly came flying out of the cavern, landing on the ground just beside the DHD in a heap.

"Daniel?" Sam asked, turning to look apprehensively at her friend just as she hit the last chevron on the DHD, only for a sudden sensation to prompt her to look up just as Adria emerged from the cavern; she must have managed to hi-jack the teleportation system used by the obelisks while the rest of the team was distracted with her soldiers. Even as Sam joined Vala's attempt to check on Daniel, Mitchell raised his gun and fired a few quick rounds at the Orici, only for her personal shield to halt the bullets before they could reach her.

"Why do I bother?" Mitchell muttered to himself.

"Adria, I want you to stop this right now!" Vala yelled, standing up to glare at her daughter.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way, Mother," Adria said, in a tone that gave no indication that she actually felt sorry for anything as she raised one hand in front of her, red/orange energy generating in her palm for a moment before she launched it towards them...

Only for Daniel to get to his feet just in time to block the blast with a burst of white energy from his own hands, the two blasts meeting each other a short distance away from Daniel.

"Get through the gate, _now_!" Daniel shouted; his voice sounded like he was making a significant effort just to remain standing even as he continued to focus on his current situation.

"We're not leaving you here!" Sam yelled; Daniel might be holding Adria at bay, but if it took this much concentration just to stop her doing anything else, there was no way that he could hope to _beat _her...

"I'll... be right behind you!" Daniel retorted, his gaze still fixed on Adria as he focused all of his energy on holding her back.

"Spike!" Sam yelled, turning to look urgently at the vampire who'd been their secret weapon in their last two encounters with Adria, only for her eyes to widen in shock and confusion at the sight of Spike visibly straining against something that none of them could see.

"Can't... get... closer!" Spike yelled over at his teammates; Sam was shocked to see his outstretched fingers _flicker _like he was a malfunctioning hologram as he stretched out a hand towards Daniel. "Something... goddamn... _hurts_..."

"OK, that plan's scratched; let's _move_!" Mitchell yelled, grabbing Vala and practically hauling her through the Stargate, Spike blinking out of view as the amulet in Vala's pocket vanished through the event horizon (Sam just hoped that Adria's line of sight meant that Daniel was blocking her view of the Stargate; if she just assumed that Spike had walked through it after Mitchell and Vala, his true nature might still be a secret).

For a moment, as she looked at Daniel, Sam prayed that he'd turn around and start to run for the 'gate right now, rather than continue to waste time trying to hold Adria back... she'd already been responsible for his death when she hadn't accompanied him during Kelowna and when her Replicator double had killed him; she _couldn't _leave him behind again...

But, as his efforts to hold Adria back continued to show no sign of abating, Sam was left with no other choice but to follow Teal'c through the Stargate...

* * *

After she arrived back at Stargate Command, along with her remaining four teammates, it took her a few seconds to realise that the Stargate had shut down with no sign that Daniel was going to pass through the wormhole himself.

Even with the knowledge that they had almost certainly just lost their last, best hope of defeating the Ori, the knowledge that she had just abandoned the man who would probably always be one of her closest friends hurt Sam more than she could have ever imagined...

* * *

AN: Before anyone gets on at me, there _is _a reason Spike couldn't get close to Adria this time around aside from the fact that I wanted Daniel to get captured by her again; I'll explain what it was in the next chapter


	32. Feelings of Death

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: A bit ambiguous about this chapter, but things just worked out this way as I was writing it; what was meant to be a stepping-stone ended up becoming a means for Sam to vent her frustration about abandoning Daniel to the only available person who won't be 'obligated' to report her 'breakdown' while still having clearance to hear her story (She's paradoxically too close to Teal'c and not close enough to Vala to feel comfortable telling them this- particularly given Vala's old 'relationship' with Daniel-, while Spike's removed enough from the situation that she can feel a BIT more comfortable telling him about it)

The Ghost in the Team

"So," Spike said as the remaining SG-1 members stood around Daniel's office a few hours later, debriefings complete and General Landry clearly as frustrated by their recent failure as the rest of them, "now that we've got the briefing done and sorted, anyone got any ideas why I suddenly _couldn't _get to Adria back there?"

"I have a couple of ideas, but I just need to know what it felt like from your perspective," Sam said, looking curiously over at the vampire. "You seemed to be straining against something when you were trying to get to Adria; what did it... feel like to you?"

"Basically felt like I was trying to walk against a strong wind," Spike replied with a slightly dismissive shrug. "'Course, it was a 'wind' that was _really _focused on me, but... well, best analogy I can think of."

"Does that help?" Vala asked.

"Possibly," Sam confirmed with a nod as she looked at Spike. "The energy that Adria was using against Daniel must have been generated from some other dimension similar to the one that you exist in at the moment; when Daniel and Adria used their powers against each other, it must have created..."

"Turbulence?" Mitchell finished for her.

"For lack of a better term, yes," Sam replied with a nod. "The energy that Adria was generating as she fought Daniel must have been causing considerable distortions in the higher dimensions that the Ancients and the Ori inhabit; you might not exist in the same dimension, but you're probably somewhere... 'in the neighbourhood', if you like."

"The important thing right now is, when we find her and Daniel, will she _know _that she has a way of keeping Spike back?" Vala asked, looking urgently around the room at the rest of the group.

"That is unlikely," Teal'c noted. "I was observing Adria's conflict with Daniel Jackson closely before Colonel Carter and I departed the planet, and her gaze remained upon him as they fought; it is doubtful that she was aware of Spike's attempt to intervene or his subsequent disappearance."

"So, we've still got _some _kind of edge over her; at least that's something..." Mitchell muttered, before he focused his attention back on Sam. "I don't suppose there's any way that we could get back to the planet where we left Jackson?"

"Even if we could find the right addresses in the DHDs to take us back there, the odds of Adria staying on that planet are practically nonexistent," Sam said, shaking her head as she looked solemnly between her teammates. "I wish that we could help Daniel as much as anyone, but we have to face the facts; he's not going to be there even if we find the planet where we left him..."

"Any chance she'd keep him around to see what she could get out of him from the info-dump Merlin gave him?" Spike asked.

"It's certainly likely; I just..." Sam began, trailing off as she spoke, even if Spike could clearly see where she'd been going with that particular train of thought.

If Daniel _was _still alive at this point, it was doubtful that Adria's reasons for keeping him that way were good ones.

"Any chance you could do a... tracking spell or something to help us find him?" Mitchell asked, looking over at Spike as he waved a hand vaguely. "I mean, I know you said you don't use magic yourself, but-"

"Anyone I could get you in touch with who _could _do that kind of thing would either kill you just for being human or probably couldn't do anything even if they tried to help you," Spike said grimly. "Any tracking spells I know about tended to rely on the person being on the same planet as you; I get the feeling that anything anyone tried to find Daniel wherever he is now wouldn't be able to reach out far enough to track him."

"Right; why would anyone _need _to find something further away than something on Earth...?" Sam said, nodding slightly in understanding even as the obvious frustration on her face made it clear that she wished it was otherwise.

"Anyway," Mitchell said after a moment's frustrated silence, standing up and looking at the group around him, "I'll just go and see what I can do about asking the general to arrange some search parties to try and track Jackson down; think you can rally the Jaffa as well?"

"If it will result in us acquiring a weapon to defeat the Ori, I believe that there are still many that I could turn to for that information," Teal'c said, following Mitchell's example as he got back to his feet.

"And I'll just... go and see if anything else for me to do comes to mind, shall I?" Vala added, following the other two men out the door, leaving Spike to look grimly at Sam.

"It wasn't your fault," he said at last, after using his hearing to confirm that nobody was listening at the door (He... _liked_... Vala a lot, but she could be a bit nosy); so long as Vala didn't leave the SGC any time soon, he should be able to stay here without the amulet yanking him away again.

"What?" Sam said, looking up at Spike in surprise.

"Daniel getting captured," Spike clarified.

"I'm his superior officer-" Sam began.

"I thought that Mitchell was the team leader-" Spike interjected (He wasn't entirely sure why he was arguing with her about this, but something told him that she needed to get something off her chest, and he was probably the best candidate since he currently wasn't 'required' to tell anyone anything as he was more of a volunteer than a paid employee).

"I was closer to Daniel, and I've been on the team longer; he was _my _responsibility-" Sam countered.

"He knew the risks-" Spike began, wondering what he was doing here; he never really cared about the group dynamics of the Scoobies beyond Buffy and Dawn, and here he was actively trying to encourage someone to feel better about a sense of guilt that he didn't entirely understand himself-?

"_I can't have been responsible for his death again_!" Sam yelled, standing up and practically screaming at Spike.

The vampire blinked, his train of thought derailed by this sudden speech.

"'Again'?" he repeated, looking at her in confusion. "He's died _before _now?"

Sam stood in silence for a moment as she looked at Spike, until she finally sighed and sat down in her office.

"Has... anyone told you about the time that Daniel... Ascended?" she asked at last, her voice slow as she spoke, apparently trying to control herself after her earlier outburst.

"He mentioned that he'd done it when he was talking to Merlin, but that's about it; why?" Spike asked.

"Well," Sam replied, swallowing slightly as she prepared herself to talk before she continued her explanation, "when he Ascended the first time, it was because he was dying of radiation poisoning after he had to disarm a naquadria warhead that was about to overload.

"Naquadria?" Spike repeated in surprise. "Is that... anything to do with that 'naquadah' stuff you've mentioned?"

"Essentially, it's a highly advanced and unstable form of naquadah; it could theoretically release more energy than naquadah, but it's also a lot harder to control it safely, and its relative rarity means that we tend to focus research on naquadah anyway," Sam explained, before she shook her head as though reminding herself to focus (Not that Spike could blame her; she stuck him as the kind of person who sometimes tried to avoid tricky stuff by focusing on her work). "Anyway, Daniel and I were visiting a research base on the planet Langara- the only planet we've found so far where naquadria exists- where the bomb had been manufactured, just as it was approaching a state of overload, and while Daniel and I were separated..."

"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the bomb went nuts, huh?" Spike finished for her, wincing slightly at the thought of what Daniel must have gone through back then; he didn't need to be a scientist to know that exposure to radiation powerful enough to be used in a bomb would _definitely _hurt.

"He managed to disarm it, but after the resulting radiation exposure he suffered in the process..." Sam paused for a moment, taking a few deep breaths, clearly trying to regain control as the painful memories of this time threatened to overwhelm her, before she resumed her original story. "Oma Desala- an Ancient we'd encountered a couple of years ago- was able to help him Ascend, but he was... gone... for almost a year before he was returned to human form for interfering- he tried to help us fight Anubis and it didn't work out-, and..."

"Blamed yourself for it, huh?" Spike asked, noting her hesitancy to continue and taking a guess; from his experience with Captain Cardboard, failing to protect your team tended to bother most _decent _military types (He'd never admit it to the guy, but when he looked at how some of the Initiative had been more concerned with slicing and dicing rather than looking out for their fellow man, after getting his soul back he really had a hell of a lot more sympathy for the type of guy who cared about his people rather than taking the easier route of focusing on killing the other guy; he still wasn't sure if he could do that himself).

"Well, only as much as the Colonel and Teal'c did- the usual 'we should have been there' thing we all feel when we lose someone on a mission in our line of work-, but the second time..." Sam replied, briefly closing her eyes at the obvious pain this particular topic of discussion caused for her, before she continued. "The second time Daniel died, I practically killed him twice."

"Huh?" Spike asked, looking at her in confusion; he was starting to wonder if her inability to 'vent' about what was obviously some pretty serious guilt before this conversation had driven her slightly mad. "How could you kill him twice?"

"Have you heard about the Replicators yet?" Sam asked.

"Don't think- wait, weren't they those robot things you said you used the Dakara superweapon on?" Spike said, snapping his fingers as the memory came back to him (Once he got his body back, he was going to take down some damn notes; there might not be as many aliens out there as there were demons on Earth, but it still took a bit of effort to keep track of them).

"Yes, that's right," Sam replied, before she swallowed slightly. "What we didn't mention is that... well, during their final attack, the Replicators were lead by a Replicator-based duplicate of me."

Spike blinked.

"They copied _you_?" he said in surprise.

"One of the humanoid Replicators had a bit of an... obsession... with me and tried to create a duplicate based on scans he took of my body and mind so that he could have me in _some_ form," Sam clarified (Spike tried to conceal the embarrassment he felt at this unintentional poke at his past; the fact that Sam couldn't _know _about his creation of the Buffybot was the only thing that stopped him reacting more strongly). "She took control of the other Replicators and managed to abduct Daniel in the hope of getting access to the Ancient knowledge he retained in his subconscious from his Ascension- he had it erased from his conscious mind when he returned to human form-, but Daniel was able to use her attempt to access his knowledge to delay the Replicators long enough for us to program the Dakara weapon..."

She paused for a moment, swallowing slightly as she looked down at her desk, evidently trying not to think too much about this particular period of her life beyond what was necessary, until she finished her sentence. "And, before the weapon destroyed the ship that Daniel had been on, my duplicate stabbed him through the heart because she hated the fact that he'd outsmarted her."

"Ah," Spike said, wincing at the thought of what his friend must have gone through before he registered the full implications of Sam's statement. "So... the way you see it, you killed him when you set off that thing _and _when the other you stabbed him?"

"She was created from _me_, Spike; how am I meant to feel?" Sam asked, looking back at him with an obviously guilty expression on her face. "If I'd just-"

"Just what?" Spike asked, shrugging slightly as he looked at Sam; he could _kind _of get why she was freaking out about this, but that didn't mean he thought it mattered that much. "She stopped being you the moment she became her; what she did-"

"_I killed him_!" Sam yelled (Spike thought that he saw a faint gleam of tears in her eyes as she glared at him, but if any were there they were pushed aside by her obvious anger at herself). "I killed him then, and I killed him _now_-!"

"He _told _us to leave-" Spike countered (He couldn't believe he was arguing in _favour _of taking orders, but if it would help him get his point across he'd do what he had to do).

"I should have... have..." Sam began to say, before she turned around, walked back to her desk, and collapsed down into her chair, her head bowed for a moment as Spike looked awkwardly around himself torn between his desire to leave his friend in an obviously emotionally intense time- he'd _really _changed since getting his soul if that was a reason he was using for sticking around here- and being here for her if she needed it.

Eventually, however, Sam gained control of herself and sat back up, looking at Spike with an awkward half-smile on her face, clearly trying to 'encourage' him to ignore what had just taken place.

"Uh... sorry about... well, that," she said, a slightly pleading tone to her voice as she looked at the vampire, evidently hoping that he wouldn't say anything about this to anyone outside the room. "It's... well, it's been a bit rough recently, and-"

"No explanations necessary; whole thing's totally understandable," Spike said, smiling slightly as he looked at Sam, his mind quickly going over the thought that had just occurred to him.

It was a _bit _of a stab in the dark, but it wasn't like he hadn't had his suspicions even before this whole mess; what he'd just seen had just given him _more _reasons to suspect that he was right...

"You like him, don't you?" he said.

"What?" Sam said, looking sharply back at Spike, her earlier breakdown apparently forgotten in the face of the vampire's sudden comment.

"You... _like_ our missing doc, don't you?" Spike repeated with a slight smile, placing extra emphasis on the word to ensure that she understood what he meant. "Anyone else, you'd feel _sorry _that you'd 'contributed' to stuff like that, but when it's someone you _really _care about it's a hell of a lot more... _intense_-"

"He's been my best friend for years-!" Sam began.

"And why's that an issue?" Spike countered, shrugging dismissively even as he continued to smile at her. "I'm not saying you're _not _friends; just saying that you're not _just _friends."

"Well... it's... I mean..." Sam said, looking around herself for a moment before she stood up and headed for the door, an expression on her face that reminded Spike of Red's 'Resolve Face'. "I have to go; until we hear something about Daniel, I've got a few experiments that I need to be getting on with."

If there was a more obvious way of getting out of an awkward conversation than work-related excuses, Spike didn't know about it yet, but at the same time he figured that it wouldn't do anyone any good if he tried to push the issue.

The old Spike might have tried to keep pushing her buttons for the sake of it, but after everything he'd been through with Buffy, and given the precarious nature of his role here- he wasn't entirely sure if they had anything that could break that amulet, but if he was tied to the damn thing it was still possible for them to send it away if they got tired of him-, it probably wouldn't be his smartest move to try and provoke her any further than he already had.

Right now, until Sam had been given some time to cool down, he was just going to stay out of her way and find somewhere else to hang around until they had something else to do; if he couldn't contribute to the search right now, maybe he should just go and find Vala or something...

* * *

In a distant warehouse on the outskirts of Colorado, abandoned long ago after the company that owned it had been shut down, a figure wearing a long, tight red dress lay on the roof and stared wistfully up at the sky, a soft smile on her face at the thought.

"You've been among the stars, my knight," she said, grinning in anticipation at the thought of what was coming up. "But it's time to take you back to Earth..."

* * *

AN 2: The above won't come into play for a couple of chapters- I want to get through the events of "Line in the Sand" first-, but I take it that you can guess who they'll be dealing with when the time comes


	33. Drawing the Line

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Well, here we go; my retelling of "Line in the Sand"- set just a few days after the last chapter-, which I hope will meet with your approval

The Ghost in the Team

Despite the fact that little real progress had been made regarding the attempt to find where Daniel was at present, Spike had to admit that the rest of SG-1 had made a decent amount of headway in their attempts to figure out new ways of opposing the Ori in the absence of the Sangraal.

With the aid of a device that Sam explained they had discovered in an old laboratory of Merlin's- apparently he'd used it to conceal his research when he'd been making the Sangraal in the first place; the thing apparently worked by shifting matter into a dimension that even the Ascended couldn't see- they'd been doing a few tests on other planets to determine whether they could make the device work on a larger scale, and the last test had left Sam fairly confident that she was ready to use the device on a larger scale. Landry had subsequently called the rest of SG-1 into a meeting, but Spike had decided to wait outside for the moment; he'd be going along to the planet, but since his condition limited what he could do on a mission like this, his presence was considered surplus to requirements.

Plus... well, he had to admit, he found the whole thing a bit frustrating; without Daniel or Merlin's knowledge available to them right now, _anything _they tried to do to fight the Ori would just buy them some time unless they could figure out some other way of getting those Ori bastards out of the galaxy, and he _still _wasn't anywhere closer to becoming solid.

To Sam's credit, she'd also tried using the device on Spike in case it was able to do something about his currently intangible status, but even that hadn't accomplished anything. While the device had turned him invisible, otherwise he had remained just as physically handicapped as he always was, even if it had been interesting to note that he could still touch stuff where everyone else was left unable to make contact with anything.

He'd tried to sound amicable about it- after all, it wasn't like he'd really expected anything to happen; his condition was unprecedented even for magic, so the chances of science being able to fix it were _really _remote in his book-, but it had still been frustrating for him to realise that the best shot he had at regaining a real body with the resources available had come to nothing.

Spike wasn't going to kid himself that anyone was going to sponsor any mission exclusively focused on finding a way to make him solid again even if he _hadn't _shown that he was probably more useful like this, which meant that, for the foreseeable future, he couldn't do anything but stand around and walk through walls to amuse himself when he was alone...

"Everything all right?" Vala's voice asked, breaking into Spike's train of thought as he sat in an empty office, the dark-haired ex-thief smiling at him as she walked through the door.

"Just a bit down, I suppose," Spike replied, shrugging slightly as he looked back at her, even as the sight of her warmed whatever he was made of throughout his intangible body; as weird as it was, his new relationship with the space thief was a definite bright spot in his currently-frustrating existence. "Not used to being so useless, you know; that bloody Stargate gives your daughter too many places to hide Daniel even if we could be sure he wasn't on a ship right now, so my usual searching methods are pretty much useless, and that's _before _you take my whole goddamn problem..."

"Hey," Vala said, sitting down beside Spike on the desk before she leaned over to give him a brief peck on the cheek, smiling at the momentary sensation when her lips made contact with something as she pulled away to look at him. "Look at that; you're solid _now_-"

"Just getting the hang of the control part of the equation; it's not the same thing," Spike interjected, waving his hand through the computer on the desk behind him for additional emphasis. "Can turn it on at the right moments, but all I've got is moments, and I still can't _feel _things when I'm like this; if I could just know I could go through a day without needing to _focus _when I touched stuff..."

He sighed and stared up at the ceiling for a moment before he shrugged and turned to look at Vala; if he had to still exist like this, he couldn't let himself get caught up in moping right now. "Still; them's the breaks, right?"

"Quite," Vala said, nodding at him before she indicated the door. "Anyway, moping aside, we'd better be off; we've got three days to set up Merlin's device in a village that's been ordered to capitulate to the Ori or die, and naturally nobody's in favour of the first option."

"Nice place?" Spike asked inquiringly.

"It's rather like the last few places we've been on purpose; does that help?" Vala replied.

"Just so long as we can escape invasions, then yes," Spike said, smiling back at her even as he crossed his fingers in his pocket; a chance to relax would always be a good thing, but given the way this team's luck had gone on the last few missions, he didn't want to jinx anything...

* * *

A couple of days later, Spike stood casually at the corner of one of the many small houses in the village they'd come here to save, smiling slightly as he looked up at the sun in the sky above him as the villagers milled around him (Teal'c and Vala were chatting with everyone, but he was trying to stand slightly off to the side; he didn't want to get into a position where they'd notice that he wasn't solid, no matter how pleasant these guys were).

He might want to be solid again, but one thing that he was _definitely _going to miss when he got his body back was the opportunity to stand in the sunshine; even if he couldn't feel it right now, it was still nice to be able to just _enjoy _the sun's rays for once, rather than having to run about in a stupid blanket if he wanted to get anywhere without sewer access.

Right now, of course, he was mainly doing this to take his mind off the fact that there wasn't much else for him to do in this whole place; the more he saw and heard about these 'Ori' sods, the more he wished for the good old days when he could actually sort out the problem by beating the other sod to a pulp (Hitting Adria had been satisfying, but taking her out wouldn't do much to sort the problem in the long term).

The idea of the Ori forces who'd come here asking the village to 'prove' themselves by constructing something used to burn heretics did little to improve Spike's opinion of them; for beings that were meant to be several thousand years old, they never seemed to have learnt anything about being gentle with people even if they were intending to kill them later on.

God, even _he'd _known that sometimes you had to take your and at least _try _and be 'nice' if you were going to get at certain victims; the fact that he'd generally gone for the quick kill didn't change the fact that he'd known the importance of other ways of doing things!

Still, his frustration at the Ori aside, he had to admit that the village itself was a pleasant enough place; Thilana, the village leader, had certainly been welcoming enough when they'd arrived, and she'd willingly- if cautiously; like anyone would, she was just a bit anxious about relying something they didn't fully understand- accepted Sam's explanation for what they were trying to accomplish with Merlin's device; the only challenge right now was whether or not Sam would be able to set the thing up in time...

"Sam's all set," Mitchell said, walking up to place his hands on Teal'c and Vala's shoulders , drawing their attention back to him.

"Colonel Reynolds and his team are standing by the gate," Teal'c said, as Spike walked over to join the other four.

"Reynolds, this is Mitchell," the colonel added, activating his radio in response to Teal'c's confirmation. "Remember we're gonna be out of radio contact once we go out of phase."

"_Understood_," the other colonel's voice replied at the other end of the radio.

With that conversation concluded, Mitchell walked over to a nearby bench to stand on top of it, giving him a better chance to address the surrounding villagers as his teammates gathered around him.

"Listen up, folks!" he said, turning his head as he spoke to try and address everyone around him. "We're gonna try a little disappearing act here. Please remember to keep your arms and legs inside the village at all times, until we come to a complete and final stop."

Spike wasn't sure if he should roll his eyes at Mitchell's statement or chuckle at the obvious confusion on the villagers' faces (He sometimes wondered why the kind of jokes he'd have found frustrating from the one-eyed carpenter actually seemed kind of amusing when Mitchell did them; did the fact that the colonel didn't insult him all the time really make _that _much difference?).

"Blank stares work too," Mitchell said, pointing at a few villagers with a casual smile as he stepped off the bench and activated his radio once again. "Sam, light her up."

"_Copy that_," Sam replied, before the radio was shut off. A few moments later, a brilliant white light illuminated the whole village, and then it faded away once again, leaving Mitchell smiling slightly as he checked his radio only to be met with nothing but static when he tried to call the other SG-team still at the Stargate.

"Looks like we did it," the lieutenant colonel said, smiling over at the rest of his team before Spike stepped back slightly as the villagers moved in to warmly shake the hands of the various members of SG-1; so long as he wasn't too close to the centre, he'd only have to deal with a few stragglers, which should make it easier for him to focus long enough to shake what hands he had to shake...

_Damnit_, being intangible without letting anyone around you know it was a lot of sodding work.

* * *

A few hours later, as night had settled on the village, Spike couldn't help but smile at the sight of young girls presenting Sam and Vala with flowers as Teal'c and Mitchell ate their food (Spike had simply said that he was fasting in preparation for a personal trial he had coming up to account for his apparent lack of interest in eating; Daniel had recommended that he use that as an excuse during an earlier briefing in case it ever came up). Even after the ceremony where the Jaffa had thanked him for his role in saving Dakara, it was still nice to feel like people actually recognised what they were doing

"Tonight," Tharlina said, standing up from her position at the top of the table to address the surrounding villagers, "we honour our newest friends from Earth, whose wisdom, generosity and kindness have allowed us to resist those who wish to return us to slavery. We extend to you our deepest and most sincere thanks."

Just as the villagers were bowing to SG-1, the same light that had surrounded them when the device was activated flared up again before settling down.

Spike didn't need to be a genius to guess that the device they'd been relying on for their protection- he was definitely including himself in that category; _he _might be pretty much impossible to damage like this, but there had to be _something _out there that the amulet couldn't take- had just shut down; Sam's response to Vala's whispered inquiry about what had just happened about the field collapsing just confirmed it, leaving him with no other choice but to abandon the previous feast and hurry after his teammates to the building where the device had been set up earlier.

With his condition forcing him to take a slightly longer way around in order to stop anyone from not bumping into him and realising that he wasn't technically there, by the time Spike reached the library Sam had apparently finished examining the device itself and was already examining the read-outs on her laptop.

"OK," she said, looking up at the rest of the team just as Spike hurried through the door to join them, "I've got some good news and some bad news."

"Good first," Mitchell said, an attitude that Spike definitely agreed with.

"Well, in order to bring everything back completely, the machine has to maintain a connection with every single molecule that it sends out of phase," Sam began to explain (Spike thought momentarily about asking her to hurry up, but pushed that aside; she knew what she was talking about, and wouldn't be discussing something like this if she didn't think it was relevant). "Now, obviously that requires a lot of energy, so I implemented a failsafe that would automatically bring everything back into our dimension in the event of a power disruption."

"And such a disruption occurred," Teal'c said, moving towards Sam's desk from where he had been silently staring out of a window.

"Well, it was just a slight fluctuation, but it was enough to trigger the failsafe," Sam clarified.

"So what do we do?" Mitchell asked.

"Actually, that's the problem," Sam said, looking apologetically at the others sitting around her. "I thought I'd stabilized the power supply."

"Any chance you can sort out whatever happened there so that it won't happen again?" Spike asked, trying to ignore the immediate thought that whatever had happened was clearly something she _didn't _know how to fix if it had happened in the first place.

The uncertain expression on Sam's face was all the answer Spike needed to work out what they were up against now; evidently, knowing what had happened didn't translate into an ability to _fix _it.

So much for his hopes that they could have an easy mission...

* * *

The next morning once again found Spike standing around waiting for an opportunity to do something, except that he was now waiting outside the village, having been deprived of the opportunity to hope for the best and left with no alternative but to grimly prepare for the worst. Sam was still working away at her attempt to reactivate Merlin's device, but without knowing precisely what had caused the problem originally, there really wasn't much they could do except wait and see what Sam could pull out of her metaphorical hat.

Still, at least the village leaders hadn't expressed any interest in selling them out or giving into the Priors to save their own necks yet; that 'Matar' guy who seemed to be the equivalent of the deputy mayor here appeared to have his doubts, but Tharlina was sticking to her commitment to avoid submitting to another's rule after their time spent in servitude to the Goa'uld (The more Spike heard about those bastards, the more he hated them; at least when someone became a vampire their true selves actually 'died' and passed on, but those bastards practically forced the host to watch as they destroyed everything around them for the sake of it...).

The only question now was whether or not SG-1 would be able to live up to their promises and actually _help _these guys get away from the Priors. Mitchell and Teal'c were helping to coordinate some kind of defensive strategy while Sam kept up her work on the device, but that left Spike and Vala to just do whatever they could. Spike had volunteered to keep an eye on the Stargate in case the Prior came back- he might not be able to keep a radio on him, but he could still move fairly fast if the situation called for it-, but that still left Sam struggling to get the power on before any Ori forces showed up and orders that they couldn't let that thing fall into enemy hands if everything went pear-shaped.

That was one thing Spike definitely missed about magic; at least if someone forgot a spell there was a chance that someone else could rewrite it again later on, but with this kind of technology it would take probably anyone here centuries at best to rebuild that thing Merlin had come up with, even _without _the issue that he'd apparently built it with some knowledge he'd picked up while he was Ascended (God, what _hadn't _that guy done in his existence?).

If he ever got the chance to get back in touch with anyone from his old life, it might be interesting to see if anyone would be willing for him to see about getting permission for Red to take a look at some of the stuff the SGC had discovered over the years; she was one of the only people he'd known who'd looked at science and technology during their lives, even if she was definitely more 'magic-girl' these days...

Further musings on the nature of technology versus magic were cut short by the sound of what appeared to be small fighters passing by above his head, clearly heading for the village at significant speed- Spike just hoped that they were loud enough for the rest of the team to hear them before they got within firing range; they hadn't been expecting _this _kind of attack-, leaving Spike with no choice but to hurry towards the village at his fastest possible speed.

Even as the sight of a bunch of Ori troops appearing on some kind of platform a short distance away from him as he ran made it clear that he was wasting his hopes, he could only pray to whatever higher being might be listening to him that he could get there in time to help his friends; they might be up against really sucky odds right now, but that didn't mean they should just give up...

* * *

As she continued her work at the generator, Sam wished that she could more easily ignore the sound of what had to be the Ori equivalent of fighters or 'puddle jumpers'- given the Ori's ties to the Ancients, the second description was probably more accurate- outside the hut where she had set up the generator; even if she knew that getting this generator working was the only way to guarantee their safety, that didn't stop her from wishing that she could get out there and help her teammates and the villagers take down their current attackers in a more direct manner...

Still, if her current plan to use an Ancient capacitor to evenly divide the generators' power worked like she hoped it would, they could manage to save this village without too much damage being done to anything; the only problem was the time available to her to _get _it working...

"_Sam, we've got fighters circling_," Mitchell's voice said, his voice betraying his obvious sense of urgency at the current crisis. "_How are you coming with that disappearing act_?"

"Just a few more minutes!" Sam replied, continuing her work even as she heard the sound of gunfire outside, both the familiar firing of P-90s and the less familiar sound of the Ori soldiers' staff weapons in retaliation.

It was a meaningless thought, but Sam suddenly wished that Daniel was here; even if he'd just been outside helping the villagers defend themselves, she would have felt more relaxed knowing that he was there in case she needed him for something...

_And where did _that _thought come from_?

She knew that she'd been missing Daniel ever since they'd been forced to leave him behind, but ever since that conversation with Spike, it was as though she'd opened a door in herself she hadn't even known existed; she'd never really realised just how _much _she'd blamed herself for Daniel's Ascension-related deaths until she actually said it, and it just felt so much more... _intense_... then she'd ever expected.

She'd always felt responsible when a mistake she'd made ended up endangering others, but somehow just the _idea _of doing something like that to Daniel- no matter how many times he'd died already- made her feel almost physically ill in a manner that she thought she'd locked away long ago.

As much as she tried to push those feelings to the back of her mind, it was like Spike's 'prompting' had forced her to acknowledge something she'd tried to deny about herself for so long that she'd almost forgotten she was even denying it in the first place...

The sound of rapid footsteps as what could only be more Ori soldiers advanced into the village forced Sam back onto her current task; there would be plenty of time to consider whatever she might or might not feel for Daniel when Merlin's device was operational and the village was safe.


	34. Invisible and Intangible

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: As with my usual policy, what I don't show will happen basically the same way that it did in the show, although I'll include some details about what happened 'off-screen' when the time comes, I assure you.

The Ghost in the Team

As he raced through the streets of the village, Spike forced himself to ignore the worst of the violence around him, pausing only long enough to eliminate a couple of soldiers who might be immediate threats to others- a well-thrown rock could do some damage no matter what kind of armour you were wearing, and the occasional karate-chop to the back of the neck at least disorientated the other guy long enough for one of the villagers to score a fatal shot-; right now, his main priority had to be making sure that Sam stayed safe long enough to finish whatever she was trying to accomplish with that device. He was relieved to note that Mitchell and Vala had apparently armed the villagers with P-90s and were helping them coordinate some kind of defence against the attacking soldiers, but that would only work for a while.

If they could just activate the device, they might not stop the soldiers who were already there, but they could at least prevent any reinforcements getting in; Spike might not have Angelus's tactical know-how, but even he knew that defending something with limited numbers was a lot easier when the enemy didn't know the territory and couldn't get reinforcements either...

As he dived through the wall into the library- after confirming that nobody was looking in his direction, of course; the last thing he wanted was to start a panic among the people they were trying to help-, Spike's eyes quickly took in the sight before him; Sam, still studying her laptop as it was connected up to the device, unaware of an Ori soldier that was coming up behind her. Unwilling to waste time by calling at Sam to look behind her- given how close the guy was he'd probably shoot her before Sam could draw her own weapon- Spike leapt through the table and grabbed the man's staff weapon, hauling it out of his hands as the other guy struggled to keep hold of it before he brought it down on his opponent's head, leaving him to collapse to the ground in a heap.

It was only when Spike turned around to look at Sam that his satisfaction with his actions was dashed; while he'd been busy jumping, the other guy had apparently managed to not only fire off the staff weapon, but had struck Sam a rather nasty-looking blow to the side with a shot that seemed to have damaged a couple of the generators they'd been using to power Merlin's device.

"Oh, _bugger_..." Spike whispered as Sam fell to the floor with a yell of pain, just as Mitchell hurried into the room, looking only briefly at the unconscious Ori soldier before he knelt down beside his teammate.

"Sam?" the colonel said, crouching down and grabbing her shoulder as he looked her over. "It's OK. You'll be OK."

Spike didn't need his rather extensive knowledge of wounds to know that Mitchell was talking a load of proverbial crap; the wound Sam had sustained might not be immediately fatal, but the sheer size of it wasn't going to do her any favours, particularly not when they were stuck in hostile territory without any way of treating it...

He didn't need to pay much attention to what was happening outside to know that the sudden lack of gunfire was a bad thing; he was fairly sure that the villagers wouldn't be able to stop themselves being very vocal if they'd managed to drive the Ori soldiers off, so the lack of distinctive sounds outside suggested that they'd been overrun by the bad guys.

"Just stay with me!" Mitchell yelled urgently at Sam, now writhing in pain on the floor even as Spike heard people outside give orders to search the village; he didn't need to see people walking past the windows to know that things were _really _bad now.

"All right," Mitchell said, standing back as Spike looked urgently between his teammates, trying to figure out some way that he could contribute to this mess. "We have to move."

"We can't!" Sam practically yelled.

"Look, I get that we don't want to leave these people, but we're pretty much _screwed _if we stay here-" Spike began.

"The device..." Sam interjected, pain somehow enhancing the resolution in her voice as she looked over Mitchell's shoulder at the table with the equipment on it.

"All right," Mitchell said, his tone grim as he took a lump of what Spike was fairly sure was C4 explosive out of his vest pockets.

"No!" Sam said, suddenly taking a tight grip of Mitchell's left sleeve. "You can't destroy it!"

"Well, what do you want me to do?" Mitchell countered in exasperation. "I can't carry you and all that junk, and Spike can't remain focused long enough to get _everything _back to the gate!"

"Activate it!" Sam said, grimacing despite the resolution on her face as Mitchell stood up and walked over to the table, the lieutenant colonel examining the device for a few moments before he glanced over at Spike.

"Don't suppose you've got any technical expertise that could help us get this thing working?" he asked uncertainly.

"I was able to set up my crypt to get illegal cable; that's about it," Spike said, shrugging awkwardly as he looked back at Mitchell; he'd been proud of that feat back when he'd just been a vampire, but it felt slightly embarrassing admitting to that kind of thing when he was technically working for the government (And _God_, why was he making such a big deal about that; he wasn't even getting bloody _paid _by these sods apart from being provided with somewhere to stay!).

"You lived in a _crypt_?" Mitchell said, looking at him incredulously for a moment- Spike couldn't exactly blame the guy for it; it wasn't like he'd really emphasised the whole 'crypt' thing before now- before he turned his attention back to the device. "We can talk about that later; right now, these generators are fried!"

"All of them?" Sam asked; whether she'd been listening the whole time or had just picked up on the essential details of this conversation, Spike didn't know.

"Well, we've got _one _working!" Mitchell noted, indicating the still-illuminated generator nearest Merlin's device.

"Ah..." Sam gasped, her mind still working to find a solution despite her current pain. "Bypass the other two; connect the leads."

Exchanging grim glances with Spike, Mitchell obeyed Sam's instructions, disconnecting the relevant cables and linking them up to the active generator.

"All right," he said, Spike trying to ignore the gathering soldiers outside the library as he anxiously hovered around his friends, "what's next?"

"There's a macro... on the... main control screen," Sam replied, her voice growing increasingly weaker as Mitchell crouched down in front of the laptop.

"I have no idea where that is!" SG-1's commanding officer said after a few moments of anxiously staring at the confusing screen in front of him, only to turn around and see that Sam had just fallen unconscious. "Sam? Sam!"

"Oh God, we're so sodding _screwed_..." Spike muttered, glancing anxiously out of the window as Mitchell anxiously clicked through the various windows on the laptop screen. Vala might have the amulet, but that still wouldn't do anyone any good if she ended up getting shot in just the right place- maybe the amulet was like something he'd heard once about diamonds having a weak point where they could shatter if you hit the right bit-, and where was the point in _him _staying alive if Mitchell and Sam were both going to get killed...?

"That's it, I think," Mitchell said, Spike turning around to see Mitchell looking grimly up at the library window before he returned his attention to the computer screen. "Well, it better be it..."

He hit a button on the laptop's keyboard, and suddenly the entire building was illuminated by a brilliant white light- the same light that had accompanied their 'shift' into other realities when the device had been activated the first time around-, the light fading away as the soldiers looked in obvious confusion at the area where the library had seemingly vanished.

It might not be a long-term solution, but at least they weren't going to get killed any time soon...

Then Spike saw one of the soldiers start yelling at Vala as she lay kneeling on the ground, an Ori soldier aiming some kind of weapon on his wrist at her, and thoughts of their continued survival in hiding ceased to be an issue.

"_Vala_!" he said, moving towards the wall in frustration, walking through it even as Mitchell yelled at him to get back inside. Ignoring the calls from the lieutenant colonel that only he could hear, Spike hurried over to stand alongside his teammate- 'girlfriend' seemed a bit juvenile even without the added complications of their relationship taken into account-, grateful for his current invisibility as another Ori soldier walked up to Vala and her near-executioner, ordering the other man to stop.

"Commander," the man who'd been about to shoot Vala said, walking over to address the new arrival in a low voice, "all those here have resisted with force."

"And they shall be punished," the commander said, taking off his helmet to reveal a face that looked surprisingly sullen; Spike got the impression that this guy _really_ didn't get much job satisfaction in his life.

"Tomin," Vala said, looking at the now-helmetless man in obvious shock.

Spike only needed a second to remember where he'd heard that name before; it was the name of Vala's Ori-aligned husband.

_Damnit_... he thought to himself.

He'd had some complicated relationships in the past, but he'd really been trying to ignore the issue that Vala was technically married- even if it might not count under Earth law, it took him to an area that a part of himself wasn't _entirely _comfortable with-, and now her goddamn husband _had _to drop in...

"Have her taken to the rings; transport her to the ship," the commander said, after he had spent a moment silently looking in Vala's direction before turning back to the other soldier. "Kill the rest."

Spike tried not to think too much about the order that this guy had just given even as Vala screamed in desperation for this 'Tomin' guy to take back the order; even if he could deflect the current staff weapon blasts to save these villagers, he'd never be able to maintain concentration long enough to stop _every _attempt the soldiers might make to kill them, and that was before he factored in the possibility of them using a grenade or something...

_Bugger_, he thought to himself as he turned away from the sight of the Ori soldiers as they opened fire on the captive villagers, sticking his head through a nearby wall in a desperate attempt to muffle the sound of the violence that he could do nothing to stop.

Invisibility might have been kind of a neat power back when Buffy had it- even if he hadn't liked the fact that she'd used it so that she wouldn't have to look herself in the mirror after they'd spent 'time' together-, but intangibility was turning out to have far more bloody downsides than people would think.

What had he done to deserve this crap?

Where was the point in punishing him for the stuff he'd done when he was soulless when he was so goddamn _limited _in his ability to make up for it?

He could stick his head here to try and ignore it all he wanted, but sometimes life really just _sucked_-!

"Oh, _shhii__**ii**_-!" he yelled, his thoughts cut short as he felt the now-frustratingly-familiar feeling of something trying to pull his technically non-existent insides out of his body...

* * *

When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a room that he recognised from the Ori ship he'd helped the SGC capture over Dakara- evidently he must be on one of the two ships remaining in this galaxy-, with Vala and a couple of guards standing nearby as a series of rings collapsed back down into the ground around him.

Spike didn't take long to realise what had happened; Vala must have been taken up to the Ori ship by one of those 'ring transporter' things he'd heard about, and since she'd had the amulet on her at the time he'd been dragged along with her.

Spike had just started to take in his surroundings when the guard began to lead Vala out of the room, leaving Spike with no choice but to follow her as she was lead through the corridors- Spike tried to keep track, but he had a feeling he'd just try taking the more direct route back anyway; it wasn't that likely that he'd had the opportunity to take Vala back to the 'ring room' or whatever it was called on his own anyway-, until the guard led Vala into a particular room. There was a large desk just in front of the door, with a metal box, a couple of books, and a few pieces of parchment scattered over it, along with a surprisingly ornate wooden bed with what looked like velvet covers. Candles were scattered around the room, along with a chest of drawers off to one side and a large ornate bowl of some sort positioned in front of a large window above the bed, looking out onto space.

Spike hated to admit it, but for a spaceship, this room looked a _lot _comfier than anything that Earth had produced so far; then again, considering that what he'd read in the files suggested that the Ori's followers hadn't done much in the way of space flight before this 'crusade' began, it was possible that they'd just been ordered to make these things elaborate to encourage people to volunteer for the assault.

"Change and wait," the soldier said, indicating a blue dress draped over the bed with some kind of wooden symbol on the front that reminded Spike of some of the Ori artefacts he'd seen earlier; it was probably their equivalent of a crucifix or something like that. "The commander will be here shortly."

With that, the soldier turned and walked out of the room, leaving Vala to stare grimly at the dress before her.

"_Great_..." she sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed as she stared up at the ceiling. "Of all the things that could have happened to me, I have to experience the worst-case scenario..."

"Yeah, it sucks, doesn't it?" Spike said, only to mentally curse when Vala didn't respond to his comment; he'd forgotten for a moment that he was inaudible in this phased state on top of everything else...

Then he remembered what he could still do in this state, and smiled slightly as he walked up to Vala and placed a hand on her arm.

"What-?" Vala began, turning around to look in his direction, only to falter when she saw nobody there. "What the...?"

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Spike leaned forward to plant a quick- albeit slightly awkward- kiss on Vala's lips, smiling as he stepped back to take in the dawning realisation on her face.

"Spike?" she said, looking around herself with a suddenly hopeful smile. "Are you... are you there?"

Unable to reply verbally, Spike reached out to place his hand on Vala's cheek, rubbing his thumb underneath her eye as he smiled at her.

"You're here..." Vala said, her eyes faintly gleaming with tears as she reached up to rub her hands over the slight lump underneath her BDU that indicated the presence of the amulet. "I'm _not _alone..."

_Never_, Spike thought silently as he leaned over, brushing a brief kiss against Vala's forehead.

He might not be able to say anything to Vala right now, but he was going to make sure she knew that she wasn't on her own...

"How are Cam and Sam?" Vala asked, looking apprehensively in his general direction. "Are they... all right?"

After a quick glance around the room confirmed the absence of anything he could use to write with that wouldn't attract far too much attention to his possible presence- the only paper he could see were those large books that were probably something to do with the Ori Bible, and while he had a low opinion of these guys as a religious group he wasn't about to risk getting Vala in trouble for further blasphemy-, Spike resorted to the basics; hoping that Vala wouldn't mind later, he reached up to briefly touch Vala's breast before ramming his hand with a decent amount of force into an area underneath her ribcage, stepping back as Vala winced.

"What the-?" she began, before what Spike had been trying to say apparently occurred to her. "Sam was shot?"

Spike tapped brief on the bed, creating a faint but obvious sound that reverberated throughout the room.

"That's... yes, right?" Vala asked, Spike responding to her query with another tap. "Great... and how's Mitchell? Is he hurt?"

Spike tapped against the wall twice on this occasion, hoping that Vala would continue to understand what he was saying.

"Two means no?" Vala asked, sighing as Spike tapped against the wall in confirmation once again. "_Great_... I assume they're safe?"

Spike gave a gentler knock against the wall on this occasion that Vala's grim expression confirmed she'd understood.

"Safe, but not able to help us?" she said, groaning as Spike tapped against the wall more firmly. "Any idea where Teal'c is?"

Spike tapped against the wall twice at that comment, groaning in frustration at his inability to provide more help than what he had said so far; he might be able to interact more than most people could in this situation, but that still wasn't much.

"So, it's just you and me?" Vala asked, smiling awkwardly at the area where Spike was currently standing. "Well... at least I'm not alone up here."

Despite the grim mood of their current situation, Spike had to admit that he was slightly touched at the obvious comfort she drew from his presence.

"Things are going to get... difficult here, Spike," Vala said at last, looking awkwardly in his direction. "Just... don't _do _anything unless I ask you for help; if I'm right about what I'll be dealing with here, you just...beating up everyone who comes through that door won't help anything."

Spike momentarily wondered if he should be offended at the insinuation that he'd automatically resort to violence, but decided that it wasn't worth the effort; not only was it accurate, but there wasn't much else he _could _do like this, and even what he could achieve would be very limited.

Still... the fact that Vala _did _seem to appreciate the fact that he was even here helped him feel a lot better; feeling like someone appreciated his presence because he made them feel safe wasn't exactly a normal feeling for a vampire, but he felt like he could get used to it...


	35. Ori Worship from a Vampire POV

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Once again, everything on the planet with Sam, Mitchell and Teal'c is taking place pretty much the same way it did originally, so the specific details won't be covered, although I'll go over the basics when I get to the right point

The Ghost in the Team

After a few moments of waiting in silence, Spike simply sitting close to Vala while occasionally touching her arm or shoulder to confirm that he was still in the same room, the door opened once again and the man that Vala had earlier identified as Tomin walked in, now dressed in a blue cloth outfit with an Ori symbol over his chest.

"Why are you still wearing the clothes of a blasphemer?" he asked, looking at her with a tone of simple disappointment in his voice, as though he had purposefully kept his expectations low.

"If I put on this dress," Vala asked, placing one hand on the dress as she stared back at the new arrival, "and say 'hallowed are the Ori', will you stop mass murdering innocent people?"

Tomin didn't respond to Vala's query, instead simply turning around to face the door.

"Tomin, wait," Vala said, her request prompting the other man to halt even if he didn't turn around, the ex-thief waiting for a moment before she continued speaking. "I know you think that everything that comes out of my mouth is a lie; I've deceived you too many times to change that now."

Spike briefly wondered what kind of lies Vala had told Tomin in the past, but already knew that he wasn't going to ask her those kind of questions even once he was restored to his visible state; if he hadn't liked thinking about the fact that Dru and Buffy had both been with Angel before they'd even known he existed, he _really _didn't want to give himself the potential to start feeling jealous and insecure about Vala's old relationships, even if he could be certain that Vala wasn't with him for the same reasons he'd always subconsciously feared had prompted them to start a relationship with him...

"But there's one thing I want you to know that is the truth," Vala continued, her gaze fixed on Tomin even if he wasn't facing her. "There were real moments between us. I did fall in love with you. In your heart you were a _good_ man; not because Origin told you to be. I know you can't possibly like what you've become- what this faith has made you do!"

"After all that time we spent together, you still know nothing about me," Tomin said, his voice low as he stared at the wall.

"I know you must still love me," Vala said (Spike forced down the instinctive surge of jealousy he felt at that comment- that was the disadvantage of feeling... like this... about someone like Vala-; it wasn't the time for that kind of thing and Vala wouldn't bring that kind of thing up with him here unless she had to), a sorrow, subtle pleading in her voice as she spoke. "Why else would I be here?"

"If it were up to me," Tomin said, turning around and walking back towards Vala, his voice a simple, direct one that put Spike uncomfortably in mind of a less 'whacky' version of Caleb (That man had made too much of a show of his 'faith' in the First for Spike to take that bit seriously, even if he'd never doubted the man's convictions), "I would light the fire that would burn you alive for your desecration. The only reason you are still here is because it was so ordered by the Orici. You will remain in this room. You will see no one; you will speak to no one. You will be educated in the ways of Origin until such time as evil no longer possesses you."

_Crap_, Spike thought, cursing the double-edged sword that was Adria's interest in Vala.

Clearly the crazy bitch still wanted her mother on her 'team' even after she'd been rejected during the last couple of meetings they'd had, but how long that 'interest' could be maintained was something he wasn't sure Vala could cope with for long before she did something to push her daughter away for good.

"No, Tomin," Vala said, standing up as Tomin started to walk towards the door again, awkwardly playing with her nails. "I'm-I'm-I'm street-smart- that's always got me by-, but I have to warn you, I've never been much for school."

"I am to teach you," Tomin said, turning back to look at her, reciting his explanation with the same simplicity that made Spike so uncomfortable. "This is my punishment for allowing you to deceive me. If you continue to resist, you will die."

With that, Tomin turned and left the room, leaving Vala to stare dejectedly after him until Spike walked over to sit down beside Vala, focusing on his arms long enough to give her a hug out of a lack of anything else to do.

"Thanks, Spike," Vala said, turning her head to smile at him as she reached up in an attempt to pat the invisible and partially intangible vampire on the arm; the initial pat passed through the arm on her first attempt, but Spike was able to concentrate long enough to make the arm more solid for the next couple of attempts.

"I'm..." she began after a moment's pause, looking awkwardly in his direction. "I'm sorry I had to say... all that... with you here. I _do_... have... feelings... for Tomin- he took me in and offered me a home when I had done nothing to merit that kind of affection-, but... well, even without the whole Ori thing, I was never able to be _totally _honest with him about my past..."

She smiled slightly in Spike's direction, the awkward expression on her face pushed aside by the genuine warmth in her eyes as she looked at him. "But you... you've heard everything that the SGC know about me, and you _still _accepted me."

If there was one thing Spike hated about having a soul, it was dealing with the guilt when people said stuff like that to him.

It wasn't like he'd lied to anyone either, but he hadn't gone out of his way to tell them about his past in detail; he hadn't exactly given them detailed information on what he'd done before he got that chip stuck in his head or regained his soul...

Still, this wasn't the time to start having internal debates about stuff like that; they had a situation to deal with right here and now, and that had to be their main priority rather than anything else.

He just hoped that Teal'c and Sam were doing all right now there; Mitchell might be safe enough in his phased state, but that wound of Sam's would definitely need treatment soon if she was going to have a chance at surviving, and he didn't want to think about Teal'c's chances alone in a village occupied by the Ori where the villagers would _definitely _be angry with the only person left belonging to the group who'd screwed up their 'promise' to protect them...

* * *

Even though Vala knew that Spike was still in the room with her, she felt that she would have almost preferred to be alone in her current circumstances; listening to Tomin reading from the Book of Origin hadn't been reassuring even when she was simply stuck in the Ori galaxy, and it was even worse when she was in her own galaxy, so close and yet so far away from the possibility of freedom.

Here they were, in the heart of enemy territory- and relatively comfortable in the process, she'd give the Ori that much; this couch was _definitely _easy to lie on-, and they couldn't even ask if Daniel was on this ship or the other one; they had a fifty-fifty chance of being in a position to save their friend, and the one person who might be able to answer that question was also the person they couldn't risk asking it.

She still shuddered at the memory of Tomin's straightforward enthusiasm after he had been healed of his limp and been conscripted for the Ori's war against the unbelievers; all the Ori had to do was give the order, and a kind, honest man like Tomin was willing to kill potentially millions of people to follow their decrees...

She might not have been the most moral of people at any point in her life- obviously ignoring anything she did when Qetesh was in control because she really couldn't be responsible for anything she did then-, but she'd generally tried to avoid killing anyone unless they'd expressed an explicit interest in killing her first; the thought that the Ori could make someone like Tomin cross those kind of lines was just disturbing and terrifying on far too many levels.

"_So it came to pass that Ver Omesh was gripped by a great famine_," Tomin said (Vala was barely even really listening at this point; she just wished he'd quit for the night or something). "_So Markon went to the Prophet Articus and asked to go to the forest for food_."

"How many people have you killed?" she asked, turning around on the couch to look intently at her husband; if he was going to stay here, she might at least try and make him think about what he was doing. "Do you keep track? Put little notches in your Ori belt?"

"_The prophet bade him be patient_," Tomin said, looking up at her only for a moment before he continued speaking, "_for the Ori provide for all who have faith. But Markon did not believe_."

"Do you remember their faces… or are there too many of them?" Vala interjected once again, standing up to walk over to the chair opposite Tomin. "Hundreds... thousands?"

For a moment, as Tomin glared angrily at her, Vala wondered if she'd finally gone too far, but then the moment passed and Tomin turned his attention back to the Book. "_So the prophet drew a line in the sand and told him, 'step across and you may do as you wish.' So Markon did and left the village and feasted on wild berries_."

"What about the stories in there that are all about not killing?" Vala asked, standing up from her chair and walking around the table to stand beside him.

"Enough!" Tomin yelled, slamming his hand on the table before he appeared to regain control of himself, staring intently at her. "They were each given a chance to save themselves. Those who do not walk the path are not worthy."

"You can preach all you want to me, Tomin, but I _know_ that's not what you believe!" Vala said, getting down on one knee as she looked urgently at the man who had done so much for her when he'd had no reason to do so.

"_The fruit was bitter_," Tomin continued, apparently ignoring her words as he turned his attention back to the Book in his hands. "_It did not satisfy him. He longed to return to the village, but found that the line had widened to a great chasm_."

"I've read the book," Vala said, glaring at Tomin even as he continued to try and speak over her words (She wished he'd stop that; it was increasingly obvious that he was just desperately trying to convince _himself _of what he was saying at this point). "I've read it. I understand why you think it's so important. The words give you comfort, and at face value it appears to be as if that they are trying to inspire the best out of people. Honesty, morality-"

As Tomin continued to rant something about a line being crossed that she couldn't understand, Vala finally decided that it was time to bring in her metaphorical 'big guns'.

"This whole crusade is a manipulation," she said, holding one hand out to partly cover the Book so that Tomin would have to pay attention to her words. "Nothing in there says that those who don't believe should be massacred. Where does it say that, Tomin? Where does it say that? _The Ori are not gods_!"

Even as Tomin tried to continue reading, his frustration finally seemed to boil over with that last statement, striking Vala with a back-handed slap that knocked her to the ground. As she turned to look at Tomin, Vala shook her head in a manner that she hoped Tomin would interpret as an attempt to clear her mind after that last attack; as much as he might want to, the last thing she wanted was for Spike to start attacking people when they were stuck on an Ori ship with no way out.

"You should kill me now," she said, staring back at Tomin as she tried to ignore the tang of blood in the corner of her mouth (How Spike was meant to subsist solely on a diet of this in his solid state Vala had no idea; the taste alone must get rather dull after a while...).

Once again, Tomin simply stood in silence before he turned and left the room, leaving Vala to look anxiously around herself; if Spike had left, she was in _real _trouble.

"Spike," she said, deciding to tackle the obvious issue as she got back to her feet and leaned against the nearby table, "if you can hear me, pull my hair."

After a moment's silence, a few strands of Vala's hair lifted up in front of her face before dropping back down.

"Thanks," Vala said, looking in what she hoped was Spike's direction based on how the hair had moved in front of her. "Look, I know how you might feel, but you _can't _start attacking anyone on this ship; we're in a dangerous position right now and me suddenly developing the ability to toss people around without touching them, while potentially intimidating, isn't _really _going to help my case at the moment."

She paused for a moment, trying to look sympathetically at where Spike might be, before she continued. "If it looks like I'm about to get killed, or if I think it's the right time for you to act, feel free to let rip if you want, but right now the best chance we've got is if I can try and convince Tomin to let me go; just... stay alert and don't do anything to let anyone know you're there, OK?"

A sudden firm pressure on her shoulder didn't do much to reassure her, but at least she knew that Spike had heard her request and was apparently willing to go along with her 'plan', such as it was.

She just wished that she had some kind of clearer idea about what she could do next; waiting around wasn't going to get her anywhere...

* * *

As Spike stood in frustration in the corner of the room, he wished that he had some kind of idea what he could actually _do _in this whole mess to make an impact on the bad guy; at least when he'd been in the Scoobies, they'd always had _some _idea how to hurt the other side even if it was difficult to do so (He wasn't sure what had been more impractical; the amount of power necessary to do much more than annoy Glory, or the effort needed to take out the First's henchmen even if they couldn't actually damage the First itself).

Vala was sitting casually in the chair that Tomin had vacated earlier when the other man returned to the room, his manner more subdued than it had been earlier.

"Forgive me for striking you," Tomin said; only the apparently genuine remorse in his voice stopped Spike from punching him like he would have punched any other guy who tried to defend losing his temper at someone he loved, and even that would only let Tomin off on this first offence...

"Hitting me is nothing compared to the lives that you mercilessly extinguished," Vala said, looking grimly over at him. "You can never make up for that, Tomin. I thought that I could save you, but I realize now it's too late."

"Yes, it is," Tomin replied, giving no indication how he felt about that (Honestly, this guy was harder to read than most vampires, and they'd had _decades _to perfect that kind of look). "You'll never see me again."

"One last story," Vala said, prompting Tomin to turn back and face her just as he was turning to leave the room. "For me."

For a moment, the only two people visible in the room simply stared at each other in silence as Vala stood up to lean against the table, before she began to speak.

"A long time ago," she said, her usual lighter manner replaced by a far more serious tone, "some people, just like you and me, over time evolved. And they became so advanced that they figured out how to turn themselves into energy and ascend to a higher plane of existence."

Tomin continued to stare silently back at Vala as she moved closer to him; Spike had no way of knowing if he was listening to Vala or was just tolerating her 'ramblings' out of respect for what they'd once shared.

"I know it sounds _crazy_, but it happened," Vala said, still staring at Tomin as she continued her story. "Then they discovered that if regular humans worshipped them, that made them more powerful. So they used their knowledge to make as many people as they could and then created a religion that would force them to prostrate in their name. The more prostrating, the more power. The religion said that these beings were benevolent, but they couldn't offer their followers ascension, because that would mean they'd have to share their power. They just use people up and throw them away. I know I'll never convince you otherwise, but everything you believe… is a lie."

Tomin showed no sign of responding to Vala's story as he turned and left the room, leaving Spike to stand by and invisibly watch the woman he... cared for... as the man she had once married walked away from her.

"Spike," Vala said, turning to look in his direction. "Could you... follow him? I think that I'm making some kind of impression on him, but... well, if that's not working, we need some kind of new plan..."

"Damnit..." Spike muttered, shaking his head in frustration even as he walked out of the door and began to hurry after Tomin.

As much as he hated being so helpless- and he hated the idea of leaving the only person who knew he was here on her own even less-, Vala had made a valid point; if they couldn't get out of this mess with Tomin's help, he was probably Vala's best chance to find a way out of here if they had to rely on their own resources. After a few moments of silently pursuing the Ori commander, he finally turned a corner to find himself looking at Tomin standing outside a door that Spike thought he recognised as the room where the ring transporters had been when he and Vala had initially been brought on board, the distinctive white-skinned form of a Prior walking through the door.

Spike wouldn't pretend to be an expert on Prior psychology, but at least this guy looked like he was slightly annoyed at this whole mess; that suggested that _something _was going comparatively right back down on the planet, even if it was just that they still didn't know how the library had vanished.

"Prior," Tomin said, as the Prior began to walk down the corridor, barely even registering Tomin's presence, "I beg forgiveness for my failure in teaching the mother of the Orici."

"You have only just _begun_, Tomin," the Prior said, the corner of his mouth turning up in a smug smile; Spike wouldn't be surprised if this bastard was just _waiting _for an excuse to kill Vala.

"Please allow me to recuse myself; she is intolerable," Tomin said, his tone rapid as he addressed the Prior. "I fear I will be of no further use. My skills are much better spent as a commander."

Spike couldn't believe this guy; he might have some faith in Vala's ability to form assessments about other people- she wouldn't have been an effective thief if she didn't have some skill at working out how people were going to react to stuff-, but so far this guy was showing no signs of being the good person Vala had told him about and was coming across as a warped fanatic only slightly less psychotic than Caleb...

"Indeed," the Prior said with a brief nod. "You have proven yourself a ruthless and skilful warrior, and a fine leader."

"Thank you," Tomin replied, nodding briefly in response to the compliment. "I'll head straight back down to the planet."

"That won't be necessary," the Prior said, just as Tomin was turning towards the ring chamber. "We are done here."

"I'm sorry, I don't understand," Tomin said.

"The village will be destroyed," the Prior said, confirming Spike's bad feeling about what he was about to hear.

"Why?" Tomin asked (Spike drew very little comfort from the fact that he seemed just as shocked as Spike was; he'd thought that these guys could afford to be a _bit _more patient given their 'omnipotence'!).

"They have been touched by evil," the Prior said (Spike briefly thought about punching the guy for his attitude, but shook that thought off; given the greater amount of effort needed to touch something when he was like this, he wasn't sure if he could do enough damage to actually kill the guy, and getting a Prior angry when Vala was a convenient target for that rage would probably be a bad idea). "There is no salvation for them."

"But we eliminated all of the unbelievers," Tomin said, apparently genuinely confused at this turn of events (Spike wondered if he genuinely believed that or was just trying to kid himself; how could anyone _believe _something when the alternative was to get killed for trying to defy it?).

"Not all of them," the Prior said simply.

"I thought the village had capitulated," Tomin said, almost apologetic. "If you'll allow me..."

"_Markon walked away from the Ori to satisfy his hunger_," the Prior said, halting Tomin's attempt to walk away as he proceeded down the corridor in the opposite direction from the ring chamber, clearly expecting Tomin to follow him as he paused and continued to speak. "_But no matter how much he ate, he did not feel full. Realizing his mistake, he ran back to the Ori. But they denied his pleas and struck down the village that welcomed him back_."

"Forgive me, Prior," Tomin said, obvious confusion in his voice as he looked at the white-skinned man, "but I was reviewing that very passage just this morning. Markon prayed for forgiveness and took the first step."

"_And the hands of the Ori enveloped all those who welcomed him back_," the Prior concluded, with the smug tone of someone certain that anyone who defied what he was saying right now was a brain-dead idiot who lacked the sense to tie their shoelaces (Or the equivalent turn of phrase; with the way the Prior's robes and Tomin's trousers hung over their feet Spike couldn't tell what kind of shoes they were wearing). "The village was destroyed. All those who stand by and accept transgressions must be punished."

"That is not the implication of the text, Prior," Tomin said, walking forward to directly face the Prior; Spike would have been more pleased at this sudden defiance from Tomin if he could be certain the guy wasn't going to get his brain fried for bringing it up. "The Ori granted forgiveness when Markon realized his mistake, and blessed the village with their light for showing him the way back to the path!"

"You dare question my judgement?" the Prior said, glaring at Tomin despite his eyes giving the impression that he couldn't see (Spike had to wonder if this guy had ever had _anyone _say he was wrong to him in his life).

"No; it's just not how I was taught-" Tomin began.

"There are many words, but only _one truth_!" the Prior said, glaring at Tomin before he walked around the commander and down the corridor.

"And so many sodding ways of reading those words to get the truth you _want _that this whole conversation's pretty much pointless," Spike said, looking grimly after the Prior as the white man walked away before he turned to look at the grim-faced Tomin. "Still, at least you're startin' to think _before _he starts firing; maybe you'll make some kind of impact before things get ugly..."

As Tomin turned to walk back along the corridor towards Vala's room, Spike only needed a moment's thought to decide to go after the Prior; Vala was probably the person most qualified to get through to her 'husband', but there was still a chance that he could take out that Prior before he did anything permanent if he tried hard enough...

* * *

"_DAMNIT_!" Spike roared, as his hands 'slipped' through the Prior's head once again, his seemingly millionth attempt to break the guy's neck falling apart in front of him.

Touching Vala was one thing- he was relatively calm then and he just wanted her to know that he was there-, but retaining the necessary focus to actually take this bastard out when he was phase-shifted into _another _dimension apart from the one he'd been stuck in since that bloody amulet was apparently another matter entirely; he just couldn't stay solid long enough to actually force the bastard's head in the right direction, and there was no bloody point trying to just beat him up because he didn't know how much force would actually be behind the punches or much punishment this bastard could take...

God, here he was, on the goddamned bridge, in the heart of the action, and he couldn't do a damn _thing_ to save that village! Mitchell and Sam might get through it if they were still phased, but that wouldn't help the rest of the village, and he still didn't know where Teal'c was in this mess...

The sight of Tomin walking through the door with a clearly troubled expression brought Spike some brief relief; the guy might still be loyal to the _concept _of the Ori, but he _definitely _hadn't like the way the Prior had twisted that story to justify what they were about to do.

"Excuse me, Prior," Tomin said, after the Prior showed no sign of responding to his presence on his own, leaving Spike to walk off to the side to watch whatever was about to happen.

"Come in, Tomin," the Prior said, sitting comfortably in his chair as he stared at the planet on the screen before them, nodding in self-satisfaction at the new arrival. "It is good that you have seen your way clear. Hallowed are those who walk in unison."

"Forgive me, Prior, but I am still troubled," Tomin said, as he paused in front of a console to the Prior's immediate left. "I believe we are in error. The people of the village have expressed a willingness to seek the truth. I believe they are in earnest. Do not the Ori wish all who seek their wisdom to follow the path?"

"I'm disappointed, Tomin," the Prior said, still staring straight ahead as though Tomin's arguments didn't even deserve the effort necessary to turn his head to counter them. "It seems that you have begun to question the will of the Ori. Or is it the unbeliever under your tutelage that has corrupted _you_?"

"No," Tomin said, his voice growing louder as he continued to address the Prior, venting his obvious frustration and anger at the abrupt dismissal of everything he'd once held dear, "I have not begun to question the will of the Ori, but I have begun to question the interpretation of their words. No matter what you say, I will not believe the _Book of Origin_ asks us to massacre innocent people! And I will not stand by while the holy doctrine of good will and faith that I have sworn to uphold is twisted into a hammer and used to beat people down!"

Spike wasn't sure how he should feel about Tomin's change of heart; he might appear serious, but a nice speech didn't mean that he was going to turn against everything he'd been fighting to upload since he got to this galaxy...

"How _dare_ you!" the Prior said, standing up from his chair while still not looking in Tomin's direction, leaving Tomin to glare angrily back at him as he stepped towards the view screen, his staff glowing a brilliant blue just as a massive burst of golden energy left the ship to strike the planet surface below them. "Behold, the hand of the Ori at work!"

Even knowing that it was just a village that was being destroyed didn't stop Spike feeling any less sick.

The idea that someone could just so casually kill that many people at one time...

Even when he'd been a vampire he'd generally just killed people to eat- the only times he ever threatened large numbers of people and _didn't _drink from them afterwards were when he was dealing with people who were trying to kill him and he felt like indulging his homicidal urges-, and your average demon could only kill so many people in one go before it became too time-consuming to go after them...

But that wasn't _him _anymore, and this _bastard _had just blown up an entire village jut because he sodding _felt like it_-!

Then Spike noticed that Tomin had left the control room at a rapid pace, and thoughts of his anger at the Prior were forgotten in the face of the immediate need to follow the other man; if he was even close to right in his assessment of the other man's recent apparent 'attitude adjustment', there was really only one place that he could be going right now...

* * *

"What happened?" Vala asked, looking anxiously up at Tomin as he virtually rushed into the room (She really wished she knew where Spike was; she hadn't felt any indication that he'd been in the room since she'd told him to follow Tomin, and she _had _to believe that he'd let her know he was there if he'd decided to come back).

"Come with me," Tomin said, grabbing her forearms.

"Let go of me-!" Vala began; she didn't know what had prompted Tomin to resort to this, but she was _not _going to let him take her away before Spike was back-

"The Prior destroyed the village," Tomin said, his urgent voice halting her train of thought despite its low volume. "There was nothing I could do. Now keep silent, please, for both our sakes."

With nothing else to do in the face of that new information- God, she didn't even know where Spike was in this whole mess; had the Prior managed to... _do _something to him?-, Vala was left to simply hurry after her husband as he lead her down and along various corridors, avoiding patrols and hiding in corners, until they finally reached the ring room, Tomin closing the door behind them after a last quick assessment of the outside corridor.

"The ship's about to break orbit," he said, his tone grim as they walked towards the ring platform. "They'll probably kill me for this, but I'm going to ring you down to the planet."

"Come with me," Vala said; thoughts about Spike and Tomin and the complications of them both being in the same room were forgotten in favour of the immediate issue of keeping him alive. "Please, Tomin?"

"You were right," Tomin said grimly. "I still love you."

"Then come!" Vala said, smiling slightly tearfully- she'd work out _why _she was crying later- when Tomin leaned over and kissed her, only to pull back after only a few seconds.

"This is all that I can do," he said, backing away towards the controls for the ring platform.

"No Tomin, you can do more!" Vala began, only to be cut off as the rings burst up from the floor to envelop her before the familiar white light of teleportation filled her eyes...

* * *

When the intense white light had faded, Vala was left standing in the middle of a vast area that was clearly a crater, most likely caused by the Prior firing the Ori battlecruiser's weapon at the planet's surface where the village had been earlier.

"Hello?" Vala asked, knowing that the odds of a reply in such an empty area were unlikely but resolved to at least try before she gave up all hope. "Anyone?"

For a moment, as another bright light surrounded her she wondered if Tomin's treachery had been discovered already, but then the light faded and Vala found herself once again standing in the village, Spike looking at her in frustration as he stood in front of her before he realised what had just happened.

"What the...?" he asked, only to be interrupted when Vala enthusiastically leaned towards him; the moment was slightly ruined when Spike turned out to be too surprised to solidify himself in time, resulting in Vala sticking her head partway through Spike's, but she was too relieved to have everyone back to focus on something like that.

"Vala Mal Doran," a voice said from behind her, prompting Vala to turn and smile in relief at the sight of Teal'c standing behind her, various villagers surrounding him.

"What the _Hell _just happened here?" Spike asked, walking past Vala to glare more directly at Teal'c; judging by his lack of apology for their recent non-kiss, Vala had a sneaking suspicion that she and Spike were going to have a few talks about what had happened up on the Ori ship when they were back on Earth.

"Colonel Carter was able to expand the range of the device in time," Teal'c replied, before he activated his radio. "Colonel Mitchell; Spike and Vala Mal Doran have returned."

"_Good to know_," Mitchell's voice replied. "_Do we know if that ship's left_?"

"As far as I know it has," Vala said, leaning over to address the radio more directly.

"How's Sam?" Spike asked, grateful to be back in a dimension where he could talk to people; he might not be able to do much physically, but at least he knew that people were _aware _of him...

"_Let's just say she's been better_," Mitchell said grimly. "_We need a medical team here right away_."

"To the 'gate?" Vala asked.

"_As soon as possible_," Mitchell confirmed.

With those words, Vala turned around and began to run towards the Stargate, leaving Spike to stand among the various villagers, staring grimly after her with a pointed expression on his face.

"Are you unwell, Spike?" Teal'c asked, looking at the vampire with the closest thing to uncertainty Spike had seen the Jaffa display since he'd arrived at the SGC.

"Just... got a bit to think about, really," Spike said at last.

He might like Teal'c- for a predominately silent guy, the man had a way of making you feel interesting without showing much obvious interest, even if you still knew when you'd annoyed him-, but what he had to say was definitely going to be said to Vala before anyone else...

* * *

AN 2: One of my longer chapters, I know, but I hope you enjoyed it; coming up, a brief original interlude before the next episode 'rewrite', as Spike's forced to face an unpleasant reminder from his past...


	36. The Past Always Comes Back

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

As he stood at the door of the medical bay, looking at the bed where Sam was still recovering from her recent staffshot wound, Spike supposed that it could have been worse. Sam might have been injured and the village attacked by the Ori, but Mitchell had apparently been able to use the power crystal from an Ori staff weapon to activate Merlin's device and extend the field far enough to envelop the whole village long enough to survive the Ori's attack.

Spike had _definitely _been relieved when he'd arrived back on the planet's surface and found himself walking among the rest of the villagers, even if he'd had to take care not to let anyone touch him even after the field had been shut down.

After the stress of the last few hours, getting back to Earth had almost been a relief; they might still be no further along in figuring out how to find where the Hell Danny was, or working out how to take out the Ori without that 'Sangraal' thing Merlin had meant to give them as an option, but at least they were safe.

"She OK?" Spike asked as a doctor walked past him- fortunately most of them were used enough to his presence in the SGC by now that they'd learned to quickly walk around him to avoid being rude-, indicating Sam's bed.

"Colonel Carter?" the doctor said, glancing at a clipboard before looking at Spike with a reassuring smile. "She'll need a week or so of bed-rest before she does anything physically strenuous, and I'd recommend keeping her off active duty for a bit after that just to make sure she doesn't re-open the wound or something like that, but she should be OK fairly soon; a good thing about these wounds is that the blast tends to cauterise the flash fairly quickly and limit the amount of long-term damage-"

"In other words, she'll be fine," Spike said, nodding in understanding before he turned around and walked off to another part of the base; after so long getting yanked around by that sodding amulet, he'd developed a pretty good feel for when it was in the immediate vicinity, and right now he didn't want to be anywhere _near _that thing-

"Spike?" the voice of the person Spike was trying to avoid said from behind him. Mentally cursing his foolishness in overlooking the possibility that Vala had put the amulet down since he'd last seen her, Spike turned to look at the dark-haired ex-thief, who was looking earnestly at him.

"What?" he asked, deciding to cut to the chase; if he couldn't avoid this conversation, he might as well just get it over with.

"Look," Vala said, looking resolutely at him as she indicated a nearby empty office, "I know that things were said on that ship that were... complicated... but you storming around like that isn't going to solve anything; could we just...?"

She trailed off awkwardly as Spike continued to glare at her, the thief's usual confidence wilting slightly in the face of the vampire's more practised 'poker face', but eventually Spike turned around and walked through the nearest wall into the office, Vala quickly slipping through the door and closing it behind her before she turned to face the vampire.

"You want to talk?" Spike said, staring at her with his arms folded and a firm glare on his face. "What the hell is there to talk about?"

"You know we _have _something to talk about or you wouldn't even be here," Vala retorted, glaring resolutely at him. "I know that you're angry about what I said there-"

"Yeah, you told him you _loved_ him," Spike interjected, his eyes narrowing as he glared at Vala. "I mean, forgive me if I'm feeling a bit annoyed about that right now-!"

"Who are you actually _annoyed _with, anyway?" Vala countered, glaring at him in exasperation; she had enough relationship troubles without Spike seeming trying to create more because he had some self-esteem-related-issues. "Me? Tomin? Yourself?"

"God, I dunno; everyone from you to Captain Cardboard seems to be on my hit list right now if I had the resources to actually _do _anything about it!" Spike retorted, rolling his eyes in frustration. "Bastard goes and digs me out of what's basically my grave, ruins my big moment of self-sacrifice for the world, Danny-boy goes and 'wakes me up' when the damn thing gets here, I'm stuck hanging around with you sods because I've got nowhere else to go, you've still got feelings for your goddamn ex-"

"And I suppose you're _completely _over _all _of your past lovers, are you?" Vala countered, forcing Spike to shut his mouth from the intensity of her glare as he processed what she'd just said to him.

The most frustrating part was that she made a valid point that he couldn't even _try _and deny without being a lying hypocrite.

He might be happy with Vala, and he was definitely past the worst of his old feelings for Buffy- he wouldn't just dump Vala for Buffy if she came back into his life; he'd moved on from that point in his existence, as he'd said to Daniel after they'd brought the _Odyssey _back to Earth-, but that didn't mean he didn't still have _some _feelings for her, even after everything he'd been through since he 'woke up' in Daniel's office.

You could move on from someone, but you could never completely _stop _caring about them; no matter how far you travelled, a part of you would always remember those people who'd meant something particularly dear to you.

"Uh... point," he admitted at last, trying not to look directly at Vala as he looked awkwardly around the office, trying to find something else to focus his attention on rather than admit just how much he'd screwed up.

God... just for once, couldn't he have an easy relationship?

Then again, that was the point of love, when you got down to it; it _wasn't _easy.

Uh..." he said at last, realising that he couldn't keep avoiding Vala's glare forever as he turned back to face her, "any chance we could... forget I was being a prat?"

"Just so long as _you _forget about any jealousy you might or might not be feeling right now," Vala said, looking resolutely at the intangible vampire before her expression softened as she walked over to him, reaching up with one hand to place it near his cheek. "I'll always care about Tomin, and I won't deny that... but I'm here because I want to be with _you_, OK?"

There was something more to it than that, of course, but Vala wasn't ready to voice it yet; whatever she felt for Spike was so... _strange _in its intensity that she didn't even know how to explain it to _herself _yet, never mind explaining it to him.

Apparently just as unsure of what to say next as she was, Spike leaned over and pecked Vala lightly on the lips, smiling as he stepped back to look at her in a more relaxed manner.

"Don't know where we're going with this either, but I _do _know that I want to see how it goes," he said, smiling reassuringly at her before his expression became slightly sheepish. "Sorry 'bout earlier... got this whole tendency to get a bit possessive when exes show up; I'm working on it, but-"

"Hey, we all make mistakes," Vala said with a smile, relieved to be past the previously awkwardness that had settled over their relationship. "As Daniel said to me once, nobody can be perfect all the time; we're only human."

"Or vampire... and Jaffa, in T.'s case," Spike pointed out, a smirk on his face that made it obvious he just added that comment to make a slight joke, before he shrugged and indicated the door, the warm grin on his face all that Vala needed to see to know that all was now forgiven and forgotten. "Anyway, 'nough of that; shall we see how the others are doing?"

* * *

Glancing up as the commissary door opened, Mitchell smiled slightly as he saw Spike and Vala walking into the room, their attitude far more relaxed than it had been when they'd walked through the Stargate. He might try and stay out of his teammates' personal lives unless he felt the situation _really _called for it- if he didn't ask too many questions about their relationship, he wouldn't have to lie if anyone asked him about it later-, but that didn't mean he hadn't noticed the earlier tension between them after they'd met back up, and it was a relief to see that they'd gotten past it.

"All well?" Vala asked, smiling casually at the other two men as she pulled up a chair at their table and sat down beside them, reaching over to pull out another chair for Spike to do the same.

"About what you'd expect," Mitchell said, smiling slightly as he looked around at his teammates, deciding to focus on what would affect all of them rather than ask about whatever Spike and Vala had resolved between them. "The doctors estimate that Sam should be back on her feet in a few days- you've gotta love alien medical tech, really-, and after that we'll be trying a few more experiments with Merlin's device; see how far we can boost the field, that kind of thing..."

"Still nothing about Danny, then?" Spike asked, looking inquiringly at the lieutenant colonel.

"Not that I've heard, no," Mitchell replied, his good mood lowering at this reminder that their team was still short one archaeologist even once Sam was back on her feet. "We've got a few possible locations that we've picked up thanks to our intelligence contacts, but they're still being checked out; given that we've still got two Ori ships to choose from-"

"And we cannot rule out the possibility that Adria has taken Daniel Jackson to one of their already-converted planets to ensure that his opportunities to contact us are even more limited," Teal'c pointed out, his own expression solemn as he looked at the others; Mitchell wondered briefly how the Jaffa felt about being the only 'original' member of SG-1 left on the current team until Sam was back on her feet. "There are too many possible locations where she could be keeping him for us to be certain of examining them all before she relocated him to a different planet, and that is considering..."

"The possibility that he's even alive, huh?" Spike finished for his new friend, nodding in grim understanding at Teal'c.

As much as he might like to tell himself that Adria was the kind of arrogant 'Big Bad' who'd keep her prisoners alive so that she could use them against her enemies, there was also the possibility that she was still rational enough to recognise when that strategy wasn't going to get her anywhere and would just kill him.

"Dammit..." Mitchell muttered, reaching over to pick up a local newspaper that someone had discarded earlier out of a lack of anything else to distract him from that particularly bleak train of thought, opening it up to examine the latest sports results. "Just once-"

"What the _HELL_?" Spike said, nearly tearing the paper out of Mitchell's hands in his haste to study it.

"Hey, what the-?" Mitchell began, before he realised that Spike was staring at the headline on the front cover, and he was suddenly ashamed that he'd missed it earlier; **COLORADO CROSS STRIKES AGAIN**.

He'd heard a rumour or two about that story over the past week, but he hadn't given it much thought; there'd been something about a serial killer who slit his victims' throats and carved a cross on their cheeks in the area, but he'd been so busy working on the Sangraal affair that he hadn't had the time to read much more about it.

Judging by the grim-yet-horrified expression on Spike's face as he read the article in question, Mitchell had a feeling that he was about to need to take a greater interest in the case than what he'd done so far; anything that could concern a member of his team that much was definitely something to find out more about, even without Spike's 'unique' background taken into account.

"Sod it all..." the intangible vampire muttered, shaking his head in an obviously half-hearted attempt at self-denial of the facts in front of him. "Not that loony bastard... _anyone _but him..."

"Is there something about this news article that concerns you, Spike?" Teal'c asked, looking inquiringly at the vampire.

"Could say that, given that I'm fairly sure I know who did that," Spike said, tapping the headline in a very pointed manner as he looked grimly at the three people sitting around him. "It's Penn."

"Penn?" Vala repeated in confusion, after a quick exchange of glances with the other two men at the table confirmed that they didn't know who Spike was talking about either. "Who's that?"

"In vamp family terms, you could probably call him my uncle; got turned by Angelus before Angelus turned Dru, who went on to turn me," Spike clarified, his gaze returning to the paper as he continued to speak. "Haven't really seen the guy for years, but method's unmistakable; he learned the whole cross-carving thing from Angelus- his way of 'mocking' God-, and these two victims match his usual M.O.; man and woman in their late forties to mid-fifties, killed a day or so apart, with the cross."

"What does that mean, exactly?" Mitchell asked.

"His way of 're-living' the murder of his family," Spike clarified, shaking his head grimly as he turned his attention back to the paper. "Guy was always a screw-up with a fixation on who he'd been when he was human; it was one reason I never really got on with him when we did meet."

"Ah," Mitchell said, his mind briefly torn between asking for more information and the possibility that he'd learned enough, before he decided to push it aside; like Teal'c's old history as Apophis's First Prime, there was nothing to gain by bringing up Spike's past right now, and he felt that the guy had earned enough trust after everything he'd done for them for them to be sure that he wouldn't keep something important from them. "So... we've got a psychotic vampire serial killer active in Colorado Springs?"

"That or it's just a freaky coincidence and it's a mortal guy with his M.O. out there, but I kind of doubt it," Spike said, his expression still grim as he looked at the other members of SG-1. "I get that it's a bit outside of our 'remit', and I know you guys aren't the Initiative, but-"

"Hey," Mitchell said, placing one hand on a table in a quiet but firm manner- slamming his hand down might attract more attention than they really wanted at this time, but that didn't mean that he shouldn't do _anything _to make sure he got his point across- as he glared resolutely at Spike. "This might not be a 'gate-related thing, but it's important to you, and it's _definitely _something that the average cop can't handle on their own; put those things together, and I think it's safe to say we're involved."

It would probably be a minor diversion in the grand scheme of things- simple little hunting and catching job, even if there probably wouldn't be anything more than ashes to bring back afterwards-, but if it gave them something to think about that wasn't Jackson's continued absence, Mitchell was all for that.

Plus, of course, there was the added 'cool' factor of the opportunity to stake a vampire; it might not be as cool as travelling to other planets, but there was still something kind of thrilling about the possibility of taking out something like that...

* * *

AN: To anyone who thinks that Spike should know that Penn's dead, given that Penn was turned before Drusilla according to available information, it struck me that Penn was probably the vampire equivalent of the uncle you only really see on family reunions and never socialise with otherwise because he's too far away; Spike would know of his existence, but it's unlikely he was really 'up-to-date' with what's happened to Penn lately.

As for who's _really _behind the murders... well, it's probably obvious, but you'll just have to wait and see if you're right or not; hope you enjoy the next chapter when it comes.


	37. Facing the Past

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Hope this chapter works; characterisation here was a bit of a challenge for reasons you'll probably guess at when we get to that stage...

The Ghost in the Team

Getting permission for a few days' leave to investigate the murders had actually been the easier part of the current situation. With the recent test of Merlin's device in the field having proven that the thing still needed a bit of work before they were ready to deploy it on a regular basis, and the person best qualified to work on it incapacitated due to injuries, Landry had no problem granting SG-1 a few days' 'leave' once the situation had been explained to him; he'd even discreetly granted them permission to take a zat or two out on their search, while commenting that he would officially claim to anyone who asked that they were simply taking 'personal time' to recover from the aftermath of their last mission.

With Sam on bed-rest for the next few days, Teal'c, as the only member of the current team who'd met him before, had been forced to contact her ex-fiance, Detective Pete Shanahan, in order to find out what he knew about the case, in the hope that inter-departmental contacts might get them a bit more than the papers had been able to provide so far. Even if he'd lost touch with the team after Sam called off the engagement- Mitchell was just grateful that Teal'c could give such an intimidating stare; it would be hard to find anything else that could have stopped Spike asking Sam why she'd broken it off with her fiancé given that they couldn't do anything _physical _to the guy-, Shanahan had understood that they wouldn't be asking about the Colorado Cross if it was a normal serial killer, and had been able to confirm that the bodies had been drained of blood through a couple of friends he had in the Colorado police department, even if he had refused their request to actually see the case files on the killer.

Still, while the information in the files would have been a useful bonus to confirm some of the specifics of what they were looking for right now, Spike had felt fairly confident in his knowledge of Penn's psychology to work out what they should do to find him on his own. Based on the location of the last couple of bodies and what he recalled about the guy's usual hunting pattern- as well as a couple of local maps and guides to compensate for his limited knowledge of Colorado-, Spike had been able to provide a couple of suggestions about where Penn might strike next, and the four of them had split up accordingly, Teal'c and Vala checking one area while Mitchell and Spike staked out the other. Given what he recalled about the guy's history, Spike was reasonably sure that Penn's next target would be his 'sister', which meant that they'd be looking for a teenage girl out on her own, and so they were concentrating their efforts on a couple of clubs around the outskirts of town, each one being a primary 'target' for older teenagers trying to get out on their own.

The only frustrating part that they had to deal with now was actually waiting for Penn to show up. With Spike's senses relatively limited in this form- coupled with the fact that he didn't have any real connection to Penn, given that he was just his 'grand-nephew' in vampire terms-, their only option had been to take up position on a roof near the most popular club on their list that still afforded a decent view of the next one. Based on what he remembered of Penn's methods, Spike was fairly sure he'd attack from above rather than try and sneak up on any victims through the sewers- from what he recalled, Penn wasn't a fan of sneaking around unless he had to; he had also enjoyed the power he perceived he possessed as one of Angelus's first 'children'-, so the current method seemed like a good place to start from, but that didn't mean it couldn't backfire on them.

Spike might be slightly appreciative of the chance to return to his 'old ways'- in the sense of what he'd done back when he was working with the 'Scoobies', anyway; he was _not _interested in going back to his former habit of slaughtering people for the sake of it-, but that wasn't to say that he wasn't apprehensive about the thought of going up against a vampire as old as Penn with a bunch of relatively inexperienced vampire hunters as 'back-up' (And he was nearly _completely _dependent on them to do anything physical to the other guy anyway)...

* * *

"So," Mitchell asked, after another hour had passed without any sign of Penn, looking curiously at Spike, "you sure we've got everything we're going to need to take this guy down?"

"You left the gun, took a couple of those 'zat' things, and you're packing stakes, amped-up tasers and a couple of crucifixes if it comes down to close quarters; you'll be fine," Spike said, nodding dismissively at his friend as he kept his gaze shifting between the various clubs in front of them; he was all for having a chat to keep the spirits up, but the damn silence was more beneficial to Spike's goal of searching for any sign of Penn's presence right now. "Trust me; given that you already know what you're after, that'll be enough."

Spike would have felt better if he was holding the stake himself, but with his current condition making that impractical at best he was leaving Mitchell with all the weaponry; he'd just stick with trying to knock Penn out if he showed up and hope that would be enough for Mitchell to get the drop on the bastard (The guy might have enough training to go up against a Jaffa warrior, but Jaffa had a sense of honour that this bastard wouldn't be interested in even if Mitchell could have brought that kind of weaponry out into the city without anyone noticing).

On the bright side, Spike was fairly sure from what he'd seen of Teal'c's strength that the guy should be able to handle himself against Penn if it turned out that the guy was active in the other side of town- Teal'c might not be a vampire, but he was _definitely _tougher than the average guy; Spike had seen him in training enough times to get that impression at least-, but Spike still hoped that it would turn out to be here that Penn was going to select his next target; his current condition might give him an edge-

The sight of rapid movement on a nearby rooftop quickly became a distinct figure as Spike focused his attention on it; it was wearing a long coat and wide-brimmed hat that concealed most of its body shape from, but it was clearly moving too fast for a normal human, and heading in the direction of the club.

"There!" Spike yelled, pointing at the figure in question before he began to run across the rooftops towards it, Mitchell just managing to keep up- the alleys in this part of town fortunately weren't wide enough for the jump to be hazardous to Mitchell's health, but it still took a bit of effort- as the vampire charged towards his destination; he vaguely heard Mitchell saying something behind him, but judging by the reference to Teal'c and Vala he assumed that the other man was talking to them on a phone and decided to ignore it. The rooftop figure was just approaching the club roof when Spike reached them, lashing out with a powerful punch that knocked the figure off its feet and to the ground, the figure slumping into a heap that remained still until Mitchell caught with the vampire.

"Next... time..." the lieutenant colonel said, glaring over at the vampire as he gasped for air, "we're... hunting... vampires... we're... staying... on... the ground..."

"You would ground yourself, my flying dearie?" a voice said from the figure on the ground that was definitely _not _Penn's. "After you went to so much trouble to get your feet back, you'll wear them out that quickly?"

"Oh God..." Spike whispered, his eyes wide with horror as he stared at the figure that he was only now realising was far too thin to be Penn, the voice one that he knew as well as he knew his own even after not hearing it spoken in person for over two years. "Dru?"

"Dru?" Mitchell repeated, looking at Spike in momentary confusion before his eyes widened in recollection. "Hold on; wasn't she-?"

"Yep; she's the vamp who turned me into one," Spike confirmed, nodding grimly at the colonel before he turned his attention back to Drusilla, the dark-haired vampire already getting to her feet and discarding the hat and coat to reveal a form-fighting red dress.

"Hello, my ghostly knight," Drusilla said, smiling at him in a disturbingly nonchalant manner even as Mitchell drew one of his zats, the stake clutched in his other hand. "You've changed a lot since the days on the mouth."

"Been a long time, Dru," Spike replied out of a lack of anything else to say, nodding awkwardly at her. "Things change."

"Ever since you told the Slayer you'd kill me for her, your life's been nothing but change, hasn't it?" Drusilla replied with a chuckle. "Your little soul, your death, your restoration..."

"I'm dealin'," Spike said, shrugging dismissively even as he clenched his fists, still glaring at his sire. "I'm not what I was any more-"

"Look, can we focus on the central issue here?" Mitchell said, glaring briefly at Spike before shifting his focus to Drusilla. "Since you're not who we were expecting, I have to ask; do you know where this 'Penn' guy is, or was he never even here in the first place?"

"My pure brother's been dust in an angelic warehouse for four years now, silly colonel," Drusilla said, giggling slightly as she looked over at Spike. "You need to stay up-to-date with family affairs, my Spike; Penn had an argument with Daddy and Miss Lockley when he was in Daddy's city and he came out on the wrong side."

"Oh," Spike said, eyes widening slightly in understanding.

"Uh... that means Penn's dead, right?" Mitchell asked, whispering to Spike out of the corner of his mouth as he kept his fingers hovering over his weapons.

"Apparently, yeah; sounds like Angel took him out in Los Angeles four years ago," Spike replied, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "God, why can't anybody tell me these things...?"

"You can't always get what you want, Spike," Drusilla said, smiling at him in a more seductive manner, walking over to Spike with an additional sway to her hips. "But that doesn't _always _have to be the case..."

"If you think I'm going _anywhere _with you, Dru, _forget _it," Spike said, glaring resolutely at his sire. "We've changed too much since then, and I can't even turn solid any more; if you think I'll really-"

Drusilla barely even seemed to move, and then Mitchell found himself struggling to breathe as her hand tightened around his throat, sharp nails grazing the back of his neck as Drusilla's face shifted into the twisted snarl that he had come to recognise as Spike's vampiric visage.

"You will come along, my dear knight," Drusilla said, a slight additional edge to her voice that Mitchell presumed was the result of her new teeth- Spike hadn't really spoken when he looked like this in the past so he'd never registered how different the guy sounded-, "or I will kill your new little friends."

"Not... happening..." Mitchell muttered in response, stretching out one hand to try and pry Drusilla's fingers away from his neck. "I don't... go down... easy..."

"You will," Drusilla said, chuckling as she looked at the colonel. "You'll go down _very _easily..."

Before Mitchell had a chance to full register the implications of that statement, Drusilla had lunged forward and bitten down into his neck, her teeth puncturing the skin as she began to apparently _suck _from his body, putting Mitchell in mind of the report he'd read about then-Major Sheppard's encounter with an Iratus bug during the early days of the Atlantis expedition-

"NO!" he yelled, shoving desperately at Drusilla, strength honed by his training with the Sudan helping him force the distracted vampire away from him, Mitchell falling to the ground as Spike stepped forward to grab his sire by the hair and yank her back, increasing the distance between her and Mitchell. Reaching up to his neck, Mitchell winced at the warm, slightly sticky feeling of what could only be blood staining his neck and shoulder- it was a good thing this shirt wasn't a particular favourite-, but as far as he could tell none of the major veins had been severed; if he could just get a doctor to look at it for a bit, all should be fine...

Of course, with Drusilla standing over him and Spike's concentration levels likely to be somewhat erratic- he was consistently good against Adria, but if this really was Drusilla Mitchell had a feeling Spike's focus might be a bit 'off' even if he wasn't quite the person he'd been when they'd been together-, there wasn't much chance of him _getting _that time...

The familiar sound of a zat allowed Mitchell to relax even before he saw the blast strike Drusilla, although she defied the usual expectations regarding past zat use by turning around to charge in the direction of the firer, Mitchell sitting up in time to see Teal'c charging towards Drusilla as Vala hung slightly back, arm outstretched with the zat in her hand.

As Mitchell watched, the Jaffa collided with Drusilla, Teal'c's sheer bulk sending their new opponent to the ground before he sat slightly up and punched her in the face, only for Drusilla to catch the second punch and throw Teal'c off to the side with shocking strength. To the big guy's credit, he was back on his feet and continuing the attack before she could do much more than get back on his feet, but it didn't seem to do much good; Teal'c's attack was as forceful as ever, but Drusilla was moving with a speed that Spike had never demonstrated- although, in Spike's defence, he didn't exactly _need _speed when nothing could hurt him anyway-, neatly side-stepping most of Teal'c's blows while the Jaffa's training seemed to be the only thing helping him avoid the worst of hers.

After a few seconds, Teal'c managed to land a lucky blow on Drusilla's face that seemed to break her nose- Mitchell saw a trickle of blood coming from it-, but the only other effect of the blow appeared to be making Drusilla even madder than she'd been before, the vampire lashing out with an open-handed blow that struck the side of Teal'c's face, leaving four thin scars from her fingernails and dazing the Jaffa long enough for Drusilla to land another punch directly in the centre of his face, sending him falling down in one of the most ungracious moves Mitchell had ever seen from his Jaffa teammate.

With the possibility of hitting Teal'c now removed from the equation, Vala tried to fire her zat at Drusilla again, but Drusilla dodged the first shot and charged at Vala, reaching the ex-thief and kicking her in the chest with such force that Vala was sent falling to the ground, clutching her stomach and gasping for air as the zat flew out of her hand, staring weakly up at Drusilla as she tried to get her breath back.

"No Slayers here, are there, my little Spike?" Drusilla said, smiling over at Spike as he glared at her, fists clenched. "They're just Gs and Es who don't know what to do with Vs-"

"I'm _not _going with you, Dru," Spike said, glaring at the woman he'd once been prepared to give everything for. "I don't know how you found me or what made you think I'd go with you now, but I'm not like that any more; I've got a life here-"

"And how long can that last, my sweet?" Drusilla asked, smiling slightly at him. "They've seen what you've let them see so far, but what happens when they see the real you?"

"This _is _the real me now-!" Spike began, glaring angrily at Drusilla.

"The you who drove spikes into heads to see how they responded to the intrusion?" Drusilla asked, giggling slightly as she looked at him. "Your past will always be there, Spike; you can't escape it-"

A sudden series of rapid energy bursts seemed to cover Drusilla's body for a few moments before she exploded into dust, leaving Spike blinking in shock at the sight before he shifted his gaze to the source of shots; Mitchell, holding both his zat and a zat he recognised as Vala's, each one aimed at the place where Drusilla had been standing earlier.

"Took a bit more than usual," Mitchell said, shrugging slightly as he indicated the weapons in his hands and the pile of ash that was all that remained of Spike's sire, "but I think we can all agree that it was worth the effort..."

With that said, he dropped the two zats and reached up to clasp his neck, which had started bleeding again during the moments when he had taken both hands away to fire the zats at Drusilla.

"Oh, _bugger_..." Spike groaned, crouching down to pull Teal'c's mobile phone out of his pocket- the Jaffa's presently unconscious state made him the easier candidate to search given Spike's physical limitations- and quickly dial the number for the SGC.

This night may not have gone entirely according to plan, but at least nobody was dead and a killer was off the streets of Colorado; hopefully Landry and other concerned parties wouldn't mind _too _much about the other details...

* * *

"So," Landry said, looking grimly at the four SG-1 members standing in front of him, exchanging awkward glances with each other that were only further emphasised by the dressing on Mitchell's neck and the plaster over Teal'c's nose, "you're saying that you went out to hunt a serial killer because you believed that it was a vampire, only to discover that it wasn't the vampire you thought it was?"

"But it _was _still a vampire; I'd like to stress that part-!" Vala began urgently.

"A fact that is one of the obvious reasons I'm not retroactively court-martialling all of you for engaging in vigilante tactics on inaccurate information," Landry said, looking pointedly at Vala for a moment before he turned to look at Spike. "Care to clarify _why _this 'mistake' happened?"

"Well... turns out the _actual _killer was my sire- the vamp who made _me _a vamp- trying to lure me in by setting up murders to look like someone else I knew so that I'd get involved; she doesn't really have a distinctive M.O. of her own so I wouldn't have known it was her if she'd tried to just be herself about it..." Spike explained, shrugging slightly awkwardly at Landry's stare (God, what _was _it with this guy; he couldn't even actually _do _anything to Spike right now, and he already felt awkward about the way the guy was staring disapprovingly at him).

"I see," Landry said, glancing over at the rest of SG-1. "And you concur with Spike's description of events?"

"The vampire said herself that she had been killing to lure Spike out, sir," Mitchell confirmed. "Not going out might have been safer for us, but if what she did when fighting us is any indication, I don't think conventional investigators would have had any more luck against her than we did, and probably even worse."

"When considering the fact that she staged these murders for the sole purpose of attracting the attention of Spike, it is also clear to me that she would have continued to commit further murders if we had not intervened at this time until she had succeeded in her objective," Teal'c added, his healing nose having little effect on his speech. "Our actions may have been inadvisable, but we believed that our reason for becoming involved was valid and were proven correct; the fact that it was more dangerous than we had anticipated is not something that we can be accurately punished for.

"Point," Landry said, nodding in acknowledge of Teal'c's statement before looking over at Spike. "Any chance that you'll have any more past lovers dropping in?"

"Not unless I called anyone," Spike replied. "Dru must have figured out where I was thanks to her visions- she had this whole ability to see the future when she was human; main reason Angelus turned her in the first place-, and she's the only person I know with that kind of talent; anyone else who might want to go after me is either dead or has no way of knowing where I am."

"Uh... hate to play devil's advocate, but any chance she told anyone else where you were?" Mitchell asked, looking over at Spike while restraining the wince as he slightly strained his neck; the wounds left by Drusilla weren't as deep as they could have been, but they were still painful.

"She wouldn't," Spike said, shaking his head briefly at his friend. "Dru wasn't really capable of holding down any kind of prolonged contact with anyone; she stayed with her sire before she made me, and after that the closest thing she had to friends were whoever I was working with at the time, and I'm fairly sure she broke things off with her last boyfriend already if she was trying to get me back."

"So... in a nutshell, it's over and we don't have to worry about anything like that again," Vala said, smiling hopefully at the general and her 'boyfriend'.

"Yep," Spike confirmed in response to the stares he received from the others.

"Good," Landry said, looking grimly at Spike for a moment before he sat back in his chair again, a slight smile on his face. "Well, SG-1, I suppose I should congratulate you for stopping the 'Colorado Cross'; you might not get official credit for it, but I'm sure the city will be grateful."

"Too bad we can't tell anybody 'bout it," Mitchell muttered, staring slightly dejectedly at the floor. "We save the city, and they're still going to think that CC's out there..."

"The price of secrecy, Colonel Mitchell; at least they'll be a bit more cautious in the city, and that's always a useful thing," Landry said, before he smiled slightly at the four of them. "Well, you've still got a few days of 'leave' while Colonel Carter recovers; use them as you wish."

Spike just wished he felt more enthusiastic about that offer as he walked out of the office, trying to ignore the slightly apprehensive stares he was receiving from his new teammates.

It wasn't like he'd ever concealed the truth about what he'd been from them, but knowing that he was a vampire wasn't the same as experiencing what he was capable of in such a 'hands-on' manner as that; Dru had nearly drained Mitchell, taken Teal'c on in a fight and walked away virtually unscratched, and attacked Vala simply because she was there despite the fact that Vala couldn't have done anything to her once the zat was taken out of the equation.

Damnit... he'd just been settling in, and now they had _Drusilla _showing them everything that he might be capable of doing once he got his body back?

_Guess I can kiss getting to actually _work _on making me solid again goodbye_... he mused in frustration.

* * *

AN 2: Short, I know, but I wanted something direct and to the point; coming up next, we move on to another episode rewrite- if you know canon, you know what's coming up-, where I hope to explore some VERY interesting twists...


	38. Through the Looking Glass

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Well, as promised, here we are; "The Road Not Taken"- set about a week after the last chapter-, and some people are going to be _very _happy about what I've got planned...

AN 2: Aside from the obvious detail of Spike's presence, there's another difference from canon at this point that I feel the need to clarify; for various reasons, everything since Vala's amnesia has taken place during the six weeks when the Ancients controlled Atlantis, so Lorne being in the SGC won't be quite the surprise that it was for Sam originally

The Ghost in the Team

As he 'sat'- as much as he could sit, anyway; he constantly had to remind himself not to lean back or he'd just fall through things- on the edge of the table in the middle of the lab, Spike wondered how it could have come to this.

Just when he'd started to feel comfortable in the SGC- hell, just when _they _were showing signs that they really accepted _him_-, Drusilla had to come along and show them just how bad he'd been back in the day, and everything changed...

It wasn't like they they'd _all _turned against him or anything, but they were definitely a bit more uncomfortable around him than they'd been in the past; clearly, hearing some of his old vampire stories and seeing Spike knock Illyria into next week wasn't the same as coming face-to-face with a psychotic vampire who'd passed sanity long ago.

Even the fact that most of the SGC hadn't seen the fight hadn't stopped them from getting worried about it; while Spike's _exact _history wasn't public knowledge even inside the SGC, the fact that SG-1 had confronted a corporeal member of Spike's race and received a fairly brutal beating wasn't something that it had been easy to keep quiet even if they'd been able to try and pull that off.

They might be willing to let him stick around, but that was probably only because nobody could actually come up with a way of getting rid of him apart from shattering the amulet, and even if SG-1 weren't that comfy around him anymore nobody was actually going to _kill _him.

He was just grateful that Vala was being relatively understanding about all this; she might wince a bit when he put pressure around the area where Dru had hit her, but otherwise she seemed to be fairly willing to accept him as who he was (Then again, with her experience as host to a Goa'uld, she probably felt fairly comfortable dismissing what he'd done as a vampire like she tried to dismiss what she'd done when she'd been Qetesh; even if he hadn't been there when the demon did those things- and he still didn't think the 'division' between demon and soul was as clear-cut for him as it was between Angelus and the soulled version; he sometimes wondered if they'd just merged demon and soul rather than trapping the one under the other in his case-, the essential principle of something else controlling his body still applied)...

And now, as if things weren't frustrating enough, Sam was running another experiment with Merlin's device, and she hadn't even bothered to let Spike know about it despite his constant attempts to ask her to use the device to try and sort out his own tangibility-related issues; he was doing her the courtesy of assuming that the force field he could just hear around the room- it made a _slight _vibration that only his enhanced senses could have hoped to pick up-, but it did mean that he couldn't take the amulet through the force field even if he could walk in.

It wasn't the most interesting way to kill time, but with options limited now that Vala was off doing some shopping while Teal'c checked out a couple of leads with their Jaffa contacts- Spike's inability to disguise himself and the discomfort involved in remaining 'inside' people for too long meant that he couldn't go along on undercover missions where this kind of concealment was a necessity-, he didn't exactly have many other options other than sit around inside a wall and wait for something to happen, and the idea that he couldn't do something that might result in him getting past this mess...

God, he wished he had a body; maybe then he could see about making an impact on Colorado's night life- assuming it had much in the way of night-life; Dru aside, he'd always heard that this place was fairly quiet vamp-wise, even if he'd never heard _why_- and feel like he was actually accomplishing something...

The sight of Mitchell walking into the room brought a brief smile to Spike's face as he heard the colonel collide with the force field, leaving Spike to grab the amulet from the floor where he'd left it and hurry through the door as the blue energy of the force field dropped, smiling at his teammates as Mitchell indicated a piece of paper that had been apparently intended for the door outside.

"That was supposed to be out..." Sam said, chuckling awkwardly as she looked at the sign before she registered Spike's presence. "Spike?"

"Just wanted to see how the experiments with that thing were going," Spike said as Mitchel turned to look at him, indicating Merlin's device with a shrug as he placed the amulet deliberately on the table beside it. "Would have come in earlier, but with that force field in place, I couldn't get the amulet in so there wasn't much point in coming in myself."

"Hold on; _you _knew that was there?" Mitchell said, looking sharply at Spike as he indicated the area where the force field had previously covered the door.

"Heard something odd in the air, put two and two together; with everything else you've got here, force fields weren't that big a stretch," Spike said with a dismissive shrug before he looked back at Sam; maybe if he just acted casually, they'd be able to move past any Dru-related awkwardness. "Bit I don't get is why."

"I was actually wondering that myself," Mitchell said, looking back at Sam. "Any reason you turned this place into Fort Knox?"

"I'm attempting to rewrite the safety protocols on Merlin's device so we can take even larger areas out of phase," Sam explained, indicating the equipment on the table before her, which Spike now noted included Merlin's device, a laptop, and a naquadah generator, along with a large box covered with electronic stuff that Spike couldn't be bothered trying to identify. "I set up a two way force shield to restrict the range of the device and to ensure that nobody entered the field accidentally."

"Very effective," Mitchell commented, rubbing his forehead even as Sam couldn't stop a slight giggle passing her lips at her teammate's discomfort.

"Any news on Daniel?" she asked, looking more seriously at the colonel.

"No, the latest sighting by the Jaffa turned out to be a false alarm," Mitchell said, shaking his head as he reached out to take Sam's arm. "But Teal'c just got back, so we are going to grab some lunch and go over the report."

"OK," Sam said, holding up a finger at the end of the arm that Mitchell was holding. "Just let me run one more test."

"No-!" Mitchell began.

"It'll only take a minute, I promise," Sam said, indicating the observation room. "You can watch from up there."

"I'm going to be timing you," Mitchell said, looking firmly at her

"And I'll go with to make sure she doesn't stay too long," Spike added, smiling casually as though this request wasn't a big deal (In all fairness, it wasn't like he'd ever made a big thing about taking part in these tests before, but after the old theories about the possibility that they might help him become solid again he had a right to be a _bit _annoyed that they were 'freezing him out', in his opinion).

Nodding in acknowledgement of the vampire's decision, Mitchell grabbed the sign and left the room, Spike noting the glow of the force field activating as the door closed behind the colonel. For a moment, there was silence in the room as Sam resumed her work on the laptop connected up to the device, Spike staring silently at her to avoid breaking her concentration even as Mitchell tapped his watch in the observation room, before the familiar flash filled the room as everything shifted out of phase.

"So," Spike asked after a few moments, looking curiously at Sam, "if you're using that force field to contain things, how'll you know if what you're trying to do worked?"

"Well-" Sam began, only to pause as a strange whining sound suddenly seemed to fill the room, as though some unidentified speaker system had activated.

"Uh... is that normal?" Spike asked, looking uncertainly at Sam.

"No..." the lieutenant colonel replied, moving to adjust the leads attached to Merlin's device, only to stop as the air above the naquadah generator suddenly seemed to ripple as a strange, reddish-pink glow appeared above it.

"What the-?" Spike began, only to suddenly feel a strange pulling sensation that reminded him disturbingly of the feeling he got when something had teleported the amulet away from him and he was trying to catch up to it-

* * *

When Spike opened his eyes once again, it was to find himself and Sam lying on the floor of the suddenly-darkened lab, klaxons and buzzers sounding all around them.

"What the...?" he muttered, staggering to his feet as he took in his surroundings, relieved to note that Sam was moving as well; clearly whatever had just happened might have left a disturbing scorch mark on the floor, but it didn't seem to have done any damage to them personally. Glancing up at the observation window, Spike noted that the room seemed undamaged, but Mitchell was no longer present, although the fact that there were voices outside the door suggested that he might have just seen whatever had happened in here and gone for help-

As the thought crossed Spike's mind, the door opened and a slightly overweight guy that Spike thought was called Doctor Lee hurried into the room, followed by a guard, just as Sam dropped the force field.

"Major, uh, are you OK?" Lee asked, looking anxiously at Sam. "We heard an explosion... and who is that?" he added, his gaze fixing on Spike.

"Did you just call me 'Major'?" Sam asked.

"And what d'you mean, 'who is that'?" Spike indignantly, looking indignantly at Lee. "I'm Spike, remember; I've been hanging around here for the last couple of months?"

"Sam, thank God you're OK," another man said as he ran into the room; Spike vaguely recognised him as one of the soldiers who'd come back from Atlantis- he thought he'd heard the guy being referred to as 'Lorne' at one point-, but aside from the occasional chat with Sheppard he hadn't really bothered to spend much time with anyone from that city and couldn't say for sure. "Where's Doctor Bennett... and who's that?"

"OK, what is with the whole 'who's that' thing?" Spike asked, rolling his eyes as he looked at the other man. "I mean, I may not be _sure _what your name is, but I _know _I've seen you before, and I'm not exactly _that _hard to forget; after all, I'm the guy who-"

He cut off his own sentence when he tried to stick his hand through the table nearby and his fingers ended up making contact with it without him even trying to think about it.

Spike almost couldn't believe what had just happened, but a second attempt to stick his hand through the object before him confirmed it; he'd _touched the table_... without having to _think _about being solid?

"Spike?" Sam said, looking sharply over at him as he stared down at his hand. "What's-?"

"I touched the table," Spike said, raising his arm and indicating his fingers.

"Yes, I know- oh my God," Sam said, her eyes widening as she reached out one arm to clasp Spike's arm, her hand meeting solid flesh for the first time since she'd witnessed Spike in Daniel's office. "Holy Hannah..."

"I'm solid..." Spike said, staring incredulously at the room around him, his hands touching everything around him as he revelled in the lack of a need for concentration to make physical contact with something outside of his own body. "I'm solid... I'm solid... _I'm back, baby_!"

Before he knew what he was doing, Spike had grabbed Sam and pulled her into an enthusiastic hug, grinning broadly even as he felt his friend pat him awkwardly on the back, all thoughts of confusion over what had just happened forgotten in favour of the immediate personal victory he'd just achieved...

Then he turned around to register the obvious confusion on the faces of Doctor Lee and the other soldiers in the lab, and his earlier joy died down to be replaced by frustration.

Whatever had just taken place here might have restored Spike to corporeal form, but it had also left them and everyone around them with several other questions that would almost certainly need to be answered soon.

* * *

AN 3: So, at last, Spike's solid again; how do you like that?

As for _how _it happened... I'll answer that soon; don't forget, he and Sam still need to work out what just happened to them before they can worry about things like that...


	39. Crossing the Bridge

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Usual rules apply as what you don't see here happened pretty much the same way as it did in the original episode, although I'll cover what happened in the skipped scenes if I think it's relevant

The Ghost in the Team

As she sat in the small 'interrogation room', waiting for someone to come and talk to her, Sam couldn't believe that things had gone this wrong this quickly; she'd always accepted that there were risks in working with Ancient technology, particular something as unique and complicated as Merlin's device, but the thought that she'd ended up trapped in another _universe _while using it was one of the rare possibilities that had never even occurred to her.

Admittedly, the fact that Spike had come along with her was slightly comforting- at least, unlike the time that Daniel had first activated the Quantum Mirror, she wasn't completely alone in trying to convince everyone around her to believe her story-, but the fact that he was corporeal now meant that she couldn't count on him coming to help her out by walking through the walls to find her, particularly not after she'd all-but-ordered him to cooperate with Major Lorne's decision to separate them until they could establish what had happened to 'Major' Carter...

God, she hoped that Spike would go along with that request.

He might not be strong enough to break down any doors that they would use to contain him- according to Teal'c's assessment of Drusilla, her main advantage in a fight between the two had been her speed as their strength had seemed to be relatively even, so from everything Spike had told them about vampires he should have at least Drusilla's strength level given that she'd turned him a few years after being turned herself-, but that didn't mean he couldn't try and fight back against the guards that might take him to wherever they decided to keep him.

The fact that they clearly weren't they should be would probably discourage Spike from doing anything too drastic- he'd already gone through one significant upheaval in his personal life in the last few months, and Sam doubted that he'd be inclined to make himself go through another when there might still be a way to get back to what they'd had before; in Sam's experience dealing with the Goa'uld, long-lived beings tended to get stuck in patterns-, but Sam couldn't pretend that she knew exactly how Spike thought; anything she and the rest of her world's SGC had come to understand about Spike was based around the idea of him as an intangible man who could only touch something after a great deal of concentration and whose essence was tied down to the amulet, and without those restrictions...

Sam was saved from pursuing that line of thought any further when the door to the room opened and Major Lorne walked in, followed by two guards, the three quickly setting up a large video camera focused on Sam before Lorne sat down opposite her, the guards taking up position outside the door before it closed.

"So," Lorne said at last, looking at her with an uncertain expression, "if you _are _from another universe, why are you here?"

"We didn't do it on purpose, believe me," Sam said, looking pointedly at Lorne; if he wanted her to focus on her own dilemma and forget about Spike, she wasn't going to make it that easy for him to do so.

"What about that machine you brought with you?" Lorne asked.

"It demolecularizes matter and transports it to another dimension," Sam replied, sighing slightly as she guessed what Lorne was about to assume

"Well, there you go," Lorne said, opening his hands in a manner of casual acceptance.

"No, no, this is different!" Sam interjected, staring resolutely at him; this situation was too complicated for her to waste time dealing with misunderstandings like that. "Look, according to M theory, there are a fixed number of alternate dimensions existing in parallel with our known universe. The multiverse theory, on the other hand, posits the existence of an infinite number of alternate universes, each evolving concurrently with our own."

"Well," Lorne asked,

"is there a universe out there somewhere where you're giving me a straight answer?"

Despite the situation, Sam couldn't help but feel slightly reassured at this familiar moment- her explaining something scientific to the leader of SG-1 and him not understanding what she was saying-, but pushed it aside to focus on what she needed to know.

"Look," she said, sighing in frustration, "there must be some reason why I was brought here, of all places. I need to know what was happening in that lab."

"I'm not authorized to give you that information," Lorne replied.

If there was one thing Sam had always appreciated about Daniel, it was that he was able to convince people when there was a time and a place to stick to the rules and regulations regarding disclosure and when it would be appropriate to ignore them, and this had to be one of those times; she and Spike had already provided more than enough evidence to confirm that they weren't from this reality- her new rank, Merlin's device, Spike's knowledge of the SGC-, and Lorne _still _thought that rules mattered at a time like this?

"OK," she said, deciding to follow that train of thought to a more hopeful line of questioning, "maybe I could talk to Daniel. Is he here?"

"Doctor Jackson was captured by the forces of the Ori several weeks ago," Lorne replied.

"OK," Sam said, trying not to show her frustration at the synchronicity of some events across universes compared to others- she hadn't been promoted yet, but Daniel _still _got captured?- as she thought of the other obvious people she could ask for help, "what about Colonel Mitchell? Cameron Mitchell?"

"The 302 pilot?" Lorne asked, evidently confused as he looked uncertainly at her. "Went down over Antarctica?"

"That's right," Sam replied, hoping that Lorne's confusion just meant that Mitchell hadn't been promoted or something like that. "Is he here?"

"I have no idea where he is," Lorne replied. "The last I heard, he quit the military."

"Teal'c?" Sam asked, becoming increasingly desperate. "Vala?"

"Teal'c went back to the Jaffa several years ago, and if you're talking about Vala Mal Doran, I hate to break it to you, but she is currently occupying a cell at Area 51. Care to take a stab at anyone else?"

Sam couldn't believe it; she'd known from Daniel's report on the original quantum mirror incident that he'd had a hard time when he'd arrived in that other reality, but at least then he'd known everyone he was dealing with from his encounters with them in his reality and at least had _some _idea of how to get them to listen to him. So far, the only people she'd met here that she knew back home were Doctor Lee and Major Lorne, and while she had always gotten along with them both she didn't really _know _them socially well enough to try anything like that...

"At least let me see the surveillance footage from the lab," she said at last. "There may be a clue."

Lorne's expression was closed as he looked over at the camera, clearly debating the merits of that suggestion even in the face of this unusual situation, and Sam finally decided to cut to the chase.

"Look," Sam said, addressing the lens directly- if this was anything like the interview cameras she used back in her universe, someone else was probably watching the footage 'live' at the other end-, "I know you want your Carter back as much as I want to go home, but we stand a much better chance of figuring this out if we work together."

Lorne's nod of acceptance after a few seconds might have been somewhat reluctant, but he was at least willing to give her a chance; considering how things could have turned out, that was more than Sam really had a right to expect when she herself didn't know what was happening here.

* * *

As he sat fuming in the small room where he'd been left for the last few hours- he wondered if these sods were trying to run 'background checks' on him or something-, Spike cursed the poor timing of his return to a solid body; if he could walk through walls, he could probably have found Sam by now and they'd already be brainstorming a plan to get out of whatever Bizarro-world they'd woken up in...

His train of thought was halted as the door to his room opened and a familiar blonde-haired figure in a blue 'jumpsuit' walked in, smiling slightly at him.

"Sammie!" Spike said, smiling at the first familiar face he'd seen that he _knew _was familiar to him, before he took in her sullen expression and the guards still stationed outside the door and his own smile faded. "Bad news?"

"Well... it ties in to what happened to bring us here, so yes, it's bad for all of us," Sam said, nodding grimly at Spike as she sat down on a chair near him, Spike settling in as she continued to speak. "From what I've learnt since arriving here, I'm still unclear on where this world and ours diverged- apart from the fact that it was probably before I was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel; I've been focusing more on how we got here rather than where our histories differ-, but apparently, in this reality, my counterpart was working on another method of completing Project Arcturus."

"What's that?" Spike asked.

"Essentially, it was an abandoned Ancient experiment to generate unlimited power by extracting zero-point energy from our own universe," Sam explained. "They'd already perfected a smaller method of doing that which involved drawing on energy created in small subspace universes, but this would have generated significantly more power if it had worked."

"How much more?" Spike asked, curious despite himself.

"Theoretically, if the experiment had worked, the power capability it produced would be as great as the scope of the universe itself," Sam replied.

Even with the limited amount he knew about astrophysics, Spike had to be impressed by that.

"That's... well, sounds pretty powerful," he said at last.

"It would be if it could work," Sam said, shaking her head in regret as she continued to speak. "Unfortunately, the creation of zero-point energy in our universe randomly altered the laws of physics in the area where they were being created, which created various exotic particles that couldn't be predicted; the resulting particles breached the containment field the Ancients were using as hard radiation and killed the research team, and prolonged generation of them could have created a rift that would have destroyed the entire universe."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding thoughtfully as he tried to process what he'd just heard. "So... basically, we tried making this 'zero-point' stuff, and the universe's immune system went wonky?"

"That's... well, that's probably a good analogy for it, yes," Sam said, smiling briefly in surprised approval at Spike- not that Spike could blame her; he rarely understood conventional science, so it was as much of a surprise to him as Sam that he'd come up with a good analogy for advanced alien science- before she continued. "In our world the Atlantis expedition rediscovered Arcturus last year, but when they tried to attempt it themselves by manually adjusting the field to compensate for the particles it triggered an overload that... well, it destroyed most of the solar system where the original experiments took place."

"Hold on; the _solar system_?" Spike repeated, looking incredulously at Sam. "As in, _planets _were destroyed because this thing didn't work?"

"Exactly," Sam confirmed with a grim nod. "We tried to repeat the experiment shortly before your amulet was delivered to the SGC by using a matter bridge to generate the exotic particles in another universe, but since there was no way to predict whether we'd just be passing the problem on to another inhabited universe, we eventually gave it up after our first attempt nearly resulted in us destroying another universe."

"And... what does that have to do with how we got here?" Spike asked.

"Well, apparently my other self had devised a similar experiment to Arcturus- I haven't been able to determine if it's because we found Arcturus here or if it's just a coincidence; I certainly haven't heard anything about whether or not we went to Atlantis in this world-, which involved extracting minute amounts of zero point energy from many parallel universes simultaneously," Sam explained. "This would have allowed them to avoid the build-up of exotic particles that were a problem for our experiments- since they were extracting such small quantities from each universe, the particles wouldn't be produced in sufficient quantities to be a real threat-, but since we were out of phase when the experiment happened, we were pulled through the matter bridge she'd created."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding in uncertain understanding before looking curiously at her. "And... the other you?"

"Vaporised when we came through," Sam replied grimly. "It was a one-way bridge; there was nowhere else for her to go."

"So... she's dead?" Spike said, staring silently at Sam for a moment before he sighed out of a lack of anything else to do. "Well... that's the first time I ever killed someone without _knowing _I was killing 'em."

Then he paused as another thought occurred to him, causing him to look curiously at Sam. "Any ideas why it made me solid when we came through that thing?"

"Well, I've only got a theory when it comes to that, but I think it makes sense," Sam said, shrugging slightly as she looked at Spike. "When we passed through that rift, we emerged on the other side in-phase with this universe, so, since I never deactivated Merlin's device after our arrival, I'm assuming that the portal essentially broke us down into our component molecules and put back together in phase with the universe; maybe, when we were being reconstructed at this end, the portal just... put you back together more completely than you were on the other side?"

"So... this portal dealie basically fixed the cracks?" Spike asked, looking uncertainly at Sam. "Like... I was a broken plate and it was the glue?"

"Again, that's a... _basic _assessment, but it covers the essential details, anyway," Sam said, nodding at Spike after a brief, contemplative pause.

"OK," Spike said, smiling at her in gratitude for her summary. "And... this is permanent, right? I'm not going to come apart when we go back through?"

"Well, you shouldn't, but... well, it's the getting-back part I'm not so sure about," Sam said, looking apologetically at Spike. "I was actually sent down here to tell you that the commander of this SGC wants to talk to us both about their current situation before they send us home; I'm not entirely clear on what the problem is, but it sounds..."

"It sounds like they want us to tackle their mess before they help us out with our mess, huh?" Spike asked, rolling his eyes as he looked upwards in exasperation. "Bloody politics..."

"I'm not happy about anything that delays us getting back where we belong either, Spike, but we have to at least see what they want if we're going to get anywhere," Sam said, looking pointedly at him for a moment before she sighed and indicated the door. "Anyway, are you going to come along?"

"Why do you even want me there?" Spike asked, looking curiously at Sam even as he stood up. "I mean, not that I'm not glad to get out of this room, but I can't really contribute anything to whatever you're doing-"

"Spike..." Sam said, taking a deep breath as she looked at him, clearly determined to ensure that he understood what she was about to say. "You're the only person here that I _know _I can trust."

Spike blinked.

"Really?" he said at last.

Even after all his time in the Scoobies and at the SGC, to have someone just _say _that they trusted him...

Even Buffy's request for him to keep an eye on Dawn had just implied trust rather than explicitly provide him with it; the fact that Sam had outright said that she trusted him... well, it meant a lot to him.

"Look, I know that we've been... uncomfortable... around you since that whole thing with Drusilla, but... when I get down to it... you've always made it clear what your motives are, and I know that you want to get back to our world as much as I do," Sam said, sighing slightly as she glanced at the door of their room. "Everyone else here... I know what they're like back home, but I don't know what they're like _here_; I'd rather not enter into any kind of agreement with them to do anything without knowing that I can count on _someone _in that room."

He might be a whole reality away from where he should be, but Spike had never felt like he belonged somewhere more than he did at that moment.

Even if he could contribute virtually _nothing _to this situation now- he had doubts that his physical strength was going to be any kind of asset in this mess-, someone had just stated that she would feel _safer _if he was with her...

"Sure," he said, smiling in understanding at her. "Where's this meeting taking place?"

* * *

AN 2: OK, since this part of the story is probably going to be a long one, I'll get this issue out of the way right now; are there any alt-Scoobies that people would particularly like Spike to encounter during his time in this reality, or should I just go with whatever springs to mind (If anyone has any requests, keep in mind that 'canon' for the Scoobies diverges shortly after Dawn's introduction based on the timeline I'm using- where Season Seven of 'BtVS' concluded shortly after the start of Season Ten of 'SG-1', so Cordelia, Tara and Anya MIGHT be alive in this reality, even if nobody else is guaranteed to have made it either)?


	40. For Want of a Nail

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: As always, what you don't see took place the same way that it did originally

AN 2: Thanks are due to Elgin for volunteering a few interesting suggestions about the Scoobies' activities in this universe; hope you like what we've come up with so far when the time comes for those questions to be answered

The Ghost in the Team

As Sam sat in the interrogation room alongside Spike- getting them to agree to his presence had been difficult at first, but when Sam had pointed out that she and Spike were both in the same position and weren't likely to tell anyone outside the SGC what was happening to them anyway they'd conceded to her request-, she had to wonder who she'd end up talking to when the base commander finally came to meet her; would it be someone she knew in some other role, or would it be a complete stranger?

As long as it wasn't this world's General Bauer or some variation on Frank Simmons, she supposed that she could cope with anyone else they might have posted into this role over the years, but that still left a great deal of leeway for things to go wrong; she still didn't even know where this world had diverged from her own...

Then the door opened and a familiar form walked into the room alongside Major Lorne, leaving Sam feeling like she was about to collapse from relief; even if he wasn't the man she knew, at least _this _man was familiar to her.

"General Hammond!" she said, automatically getting to her feet.

"Colonel," Hammond replied, his gaze moving curiously over to where Spike stood in corner before he settled for giving the vampire a brief nod.

"You're in command here?" Sam continued, grateful for some additional evidence of where this world and hers had diverged; so far it looked like anything that happened before they found Atlantis was at least provisionally intact, but after that she wouldn't like to make any more guesses without more information.

"That's right," Hammond replied, his tone giving no indication about how he felt about that last statement.

"I'm sorry, sir," she added, suddenly realising how she must have sounded; if he didn't know the context of the query, it might have sounded like she was implying that he _shouldn't _be here. "It's just a little strange; the General Hammond I know is retired from active service."

"Well then, he's a lucky man," Hammond said, smiling slightly at her before he indicated the chair that she'd just vacated. "Please, sit."

As Sam sat back down in her chair while Lorne took one of the chairs opposite her, Hammond glanced over at Spike in a pointed manner, prompting the vampire to role his eyes and walk over to take the other chair on Sam's side of the desk; he might be comfortable standing, but antagonising the boss of this place probably wouldn't get them anywhere as far as trying to get home was concerned.

"I know this must be difficult for you, Colonel, Mr... Spike," Hammond said, looking slightly sceptically at the vampire before he continued (Sam briefly hoped that this General Hammond hadn't managed to find anything out about Spike's counterpart in this world, assuming that Spike existed over here; so far she'd been able to pass Spike's initial reaction to his now-solid body by explaining that he'd fallen victim to a strange experiment in her world that had only been reversed when he came to this one, but it was only a matter of time before Spike found himself in a situation where his vampire status would have to be revealed, even if people didn't question how someone with his attitude and appearance could have been hired to join the SGC under normal circumstances, to say nothing of why he would have been involved in an experiment dressed like that). "It's difficult for us as well. In fact, the timing couldn't be worse."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"Three weeks ago, the Ori attempted an attack on Earth," Major Lorne explained.

"And you survived it?" Spike said, looking slightly incredulously at the two men, clearly remembering what he'd seen the Ori ships do during their last encounter. "I mean, OK, I _did _manage to save Dakara from one of their ships back home, but that was only due to a _very _lucky fluke..."

"His intangibility meant that he was able to take out the ship's pilot without them being able to hurt him in return when he ended up on board the attacking vessel; it's... complicated," Sam said, noting Hammond and Lorne's contemplative expressions as they looked at Spike; she didn't think that either of the men she knew would have tried to use Spike against his will, but it would still be best to make sure that they knew they couldn't expect Spike to pull off a similar feat here.

"I... see," Hammond said, looking between the two in slight confusion- Sam doubted anyone without her experience with this man's counterpart could have seen it- before he continued. "We... weren't that fortunate here, anyway; we fought the single ship they sent after us off with the Ancient chair, but our ZPM was nearly depleted in the process."

"That's why our Major Carter was running that experiment," Lorne explained. "She was trying to bolster our power reserves with captured energy from other universes."

"And, of course, you only have the one ZPM, because you've never been able to find records of new ones in Atlantis..." Sam said, nodding in understanding (Their ZPM resources from Atlantis might be limited, but what they'd discovered in the city's databanks had at least helped them improve the naquadah generator's output levels to a certain degree).

The looks that Hammond and Lorne exchanged at that comment at least confirmed that her provisional theory about this timeline's divergence point was correct; whatever had taken place had happened before they had discovered Atlantis.

"Atlantis," Major Lorne said, looking curiously at her. "You've mentioned them before; where is that?"

"It's a city of the Ancients in the Pegasus Galaxy," Sam said (She contemplated and rejected the idea of mentioning the recent handover of the city to the crew of the _Tria_; she doubted this Earth was in any position to attempt that kind of rescue, even if there was any chance of them coming with a convincing argument to persuade the _Tria _crew to help them on Earth rather than just re-establishing themselves in Atlantis). "In my reality, we have an international contingent there."

"I don't know about your reality, Colonel, but in this world, there isn't much in the way of international cooperation," Hammond said, his tone and expression grim as he looked solemnly at her. "Three years ago, the Goa'uld system lord Anubis launched an attack on Earth. We had no choice but to reveal the existence of the Stargate program to the world."

Sam tried not to show her relief that her theory about when this world had diverged from hers had been correct, but that relief quickly faded as she processed what she'd just learned.

It was possible that Anubis had just decided to attack this Earth earlier than he had back in her world, but since Lorne had mentioned Mitchell being shot down during a fight in Antarctica, the obvious explanation was that, in this reality, Anubis's attack on Earth while she and the rest of SG-1 had tried to acquire their first ZPM using the Ancient knowledge that Jack had downloaded into his mind hadn't gone according to plan. Either they'd been too late getting back or something else had done wrong, but the end result was fairly clear; they hadn't arrived back in time to keep Anubis's attack on Earth contained to a degree that would have allowed them to deny that anything had happened in the aftermath, and things hadn't gone well.

If they'd been too late getting back to Earth in this world...

Somehow, she wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Jack O'Neill of this world had died after they'd defeated Anubis- or at least destroyed his ship- in this reality; he'd been on the brink of dying from the Ancient knowledge he'd downloaded before they managed to put him into stasis, and if it had taken too long for them to get back, he'd probably have collapsed before they could get him into the pods...

"People panicked," Lorne continued, bringing Sam's attention back to the present, his tone grim as he looked at her. "There was rioting in the streets. The President had to declare martial law."

"The diplomatic fallout was even worse," Hammond said, after giving Sam a moment of silence to process that information (A part of her wanted to believe that things would have improved since then, but she wouldn't like to count on it if this reality had faced anything like the dangers she'd encountered back in her world). "You can imagine how the world's governments reacted when they realized the kind of technology being employed by the United States military."

"We barely got the chair out of Antarctica before the Russians moved in," Lorne said.

"Now it's at Area 51," Hammond said, his voice low and reflective as he looked firmly at Sam. "But it isn't going to do us much good unless we can find a way to power it. And that's where you come in."

"You want me to complete your Carter's research," Sam said, as understanding dawned on her.

"Major Lorne tells me you've been conducting similar research in your own universe," Hammond said.

"Well, yes sir," Sam replied; she thought about clarifying that she'd only played a peripheral role in the experiments back in her world, but this wasn't the time to argue about the smaller details like that. "But, with all due respect, we're facing a very real threat in my universe; I need to start thinking about how Spike and I are going to get back there."

"Let's say we agreed to help you get back, and gave you full access to the resources of this base," Hammond said, looking contemplatively at her. "How long would it take?"

"I don't know," Sam replied with an awkward shrug, wishing that she had a better answer. "I don't even have a working theory yet."

"Well, are we talking weeks?" Hammond asked, shrugging slightly as he looked at her. "Or maybe even months?"

"Yeah, it's possible," Sam confirmed; if this Hammond knew her other self as well as the Hammond of her universe knew her, trying to lie wouldn't get her anywhere useful. "That's why I need to get started right away."

"I'm sorry, Colonel, but the fact is, we don't have that kind of time," Hammond replied, shaking his head slightly. "Our intelligence indicates that having consolidated their position in this part of the galaxy, the Ori are assembling a fleet for a full scale attack on Earth. We expect them within five days."

_A _fleet? Spike thought, looking over at Sam in shock.

He was aware that 'fleet' could mean anything in this situation- given how big those Ori things were, it wouldn't take that many ships to bring together enough firepower to count as a fleet by anyone's standards even if they didn't have much in the way of numbers-, but the implications of a statement like that were _not _encouraging...

He thought it was probably safe to say that they weren't going to be getting home any time soon with a threat like that.

* * *

"_Damnit_..." Sam muttered as she slammed another pad of paper down on the desk in front of her, looking in exasperation up at the ceiling.

"Things OK, Sammy?" Spike asked, looking curiously over at the astrophysicist. Given that nobody had yet asked what Spike's specific role was back in her world, Sam had managed to bluff Hammond and Lorne into allowing Spike to help her analyse her other self's work by claiming that he'd been helping her in her research back in her reality in order to ensure that they weren't kept apart- given the obviously tense situation in this reality and the potentially unknown agenda of the rest of this world's SGC, neither of them felt comfortable being split up unless they had to be-, but they'd both known before they started this research that Spike's main goal at this point would have been to find what he could about the other Sam's life in her office while Sam looked over her counterpart's work, even if he hadn't found much of interest at this point.

"Not really," Sam sighed, shaking her head in exasperation as she looked at the papers in front of her. "The other me at least kept her work in the same filing system that I use- I've encountered some alternate versions of myself who never even joined the military; I'd probably never know enough about how their minds work to pull this off if I was dealing with them-, so I can follow her line of reasoning most of the time, but so much of this is branching out into areas that I haven't really considered myself that I'm not sure if I'll ever manage to catch up before the Ori get here..."

"Didn't you design those 'naquadah generator' things I heard about?" Spike asked, sitting down opposite Sam and looking curiously at her. "I mean, OK, from what I heard you got the idea from another planet, but maybe you could modify-"

"There's only so much that I can do with those generators before the power being generated surpasses design safety limits; it took five years for me to perfect the second generation of naquadah generator, it took two of them operating in a state of barely-controlled overload to serve as any kind of substitute for just one ZPM, which is what we're looking for here, and even then we only had enough power for a few moments before they burned out," Sam explained, shaking her head in frustration as she stared at the equations before her. "I helped the team we assigned to Atlantis draw up some of the final drafts of this theory back in our world, but cross-dimensional theory isn't something I've covered on my own, and I can't recall every detail of everything we learned from Atlantis that I used to improve my research; every problem we've had involving this kind of situation back home always gave me access to additional resources that we just don't have right now..."

"Ah," Spike said, sighing in frustration as he opened a drawer in the other Sam's desk, only for his eyes to widen and a slight smile to spread across his face as he looked at the contents. "Well, I'll be..."

"What?" Sam asked, looking up at him with a slightly eager curiosity. "Good news?"

"Just... something interesting; not what you're looking for, anyway," Spike said, picking up the object in question and showing it to Sam. She was only partly surprised to see that it was a CD- she'd been known to keep a couple of CDs available if she ever wanted to relax while working; if the music wasn't too loud, it could help her relax-, but she didn't recall any musician named 'Daniel 'Oz'' back in their reality.

"You know him?" she asked, taking the disc container from Spike and examining it.

"Manner of speaking," Spike replied with a shrug. "I nearly ate his girlfriend a couple of times before I got the chip."

"Oh," Sam said, uncertain what else she could say in response to that kind of statement; given when his encounters with Daniel 'Oz'- it was probably a shortened form of his surname or something like that- would have taken place, she could hardly fault Spike for acting like any other vampire when he'd had no reason to be anything _but _another vampire...

"He was an associate of those... vampire hunters you mentioned?" she asked at last, looking curiously at him.

"Joined the team during my first year in Sunnydale- didn't actually meet him much, though-; dude was also a werewolf," her strange new teammate added.

"A _werewolf_?" Sam repeated, looking at the man on the cover of the case in her hands in shock.

Spike had mentioned that werewolves existed, and it wasn't like she couldn't work them into her world-view with greater ease than she could accept vampires- the need for one werewolf to bite another to create more of its kind certainly suggested the existence of some kind of virus, and the moon's gravitational pull could have kind of impact on the water in the human body that triggered the mutation-, but knowing about them as a concept and knowing that the man she was now looking at was one of them...

"They kept him locked up in a cage on the full moon for the first couple of years that it happened- best way to stop him hurting anyone, really-, but last I heard he'd gone off to Tibet to make contact with some bunch of shamans to learn how to control the wolf rather than just locking it up after he had a fling with this female 'wolf who'd come to town," Spike said, shrugging casually as he studied the CD. "Heard that he came back for a brief visit but left when it turned out Red could still bring out the beast in him, and I didn't exactly _meet _him at that point so I don't know where he went next anyway, but timing-wise it would've been just a few months before this world stopped being ours..."

"I... see..." Sam said, nodding slightly uncertainly as she took the CD from Spike, studying it for a few moments before she looked back at the vampire. "Well, I'm no expert on this field, but judging by the lack of copyright information here, and given the basic nature of the discs themselves, he must privately distribute it; if society's in the kind of shape General Hammond implied, he probably has to design the CDs and everything else himself..."

"Fits what I heard 'bout him, anyway; guy was apparently a bit of a brain as well as a musician- guitar-player in his spare time for some local group-, even if he didn't really apply himself to his tests," Spike said, shrugging slightly.

"Apply..." Sam repeated, a suddenly thoughtful expression on her face as she looked over at Spike, a smile slowly but surely spreading across her face as she looked at him. "That's _it_!"

"What's it?" Spike asked.

"I _think _I have an idea," Sam said, standing up and pushing the papers she'd just been studying to the side. "Working out my other self's equations in the time we've got would take too long and there's no guarantee it would work anyway, but we _do _have the technology that we've been working on back in _our _reality; Merlin's device."

"Uh... you're saying we put the SGC out of phase?" Spike asked, looking uncertainly at her. "I get that I don't know much about this kind of fighting, but if the Ori take over the rest of the planet-"

"Which is why we don't put the SGC out of phase; we put _Earth _out of phase," Sam said, smiling at Spike.

The vampire didn't even bother hiding the shocked expression on his face at that suggestion.

"_Earth_?" he repeated. "We turn the entire _sodding __**planet**__intangible_?"

"Why not?" Sam asked with a casual shrug. "I've already been working on expanding the range of the device; all I need to do is work out how much power we'll need to do it- it shouldn't be that much; the drone-chair requires a constant amount of activity while the device generally operates at a lower power level except when it's being turned on and off-, and it _should _be possible..."

"In the time we've got?" Spike asked.

"It's better than the alternative," Sam replied resolutely. "At least this uses technology I already understand."

It might only be a temporary solution to the Ori threat facing this world, but at least she could buy them more time to find additional resources and contacts to continue the fight if they could convince the Ori that this Earth wasn't a threat...


	41. Ripples in the River

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: As always, what you don't see took place the same way that it did originally

AN 2: Further information about the Scoobies' activities in this world will be revealed here; hope you like it (And thanks to Elgin for helping me work out some of the fine details about their new lives)

The Ghost in the Team

As he sat impatiently in Sam's office, Spike made a mental note to try and get in some background reading about what Sam was actually up to; science might have never been his thing, but if it was down to just him and Sam until they got home, he might as well do _something _to help her beyond remind her that they had another world to get back to in the first place.

Unfortunately, even with the best of intentions to motivate him, Spike doubted he'd ever be able to focus on that science stuff given the topic currently dominating his mind after the discovery of Oz's CD had sparked off the questions he hadn't even realised he'd been asking himself since Sam told him where they were; if this was an alternate reality, with a totally new history, what was everyone _he _knew doing in this world?

It might be a bit of a risk to draw attention to himself, but if he was going to move on, he needed to find out what had happened in this world to the people _he _knew; even if they weren't _his _friends- not that he felt entirely comfortable considering them any kind of friends; aside from Buffy and Dawn (And, as much as he hated to admit it, even the Niblet was slightly questionable after what he'd done to Buffy before getting his soul back), most of them would probably have been fine to see him dead-, he still felt like he should know what happened to them...

Finally, lost for anything else to do with himself, Spike got up and walked out of the office- only just remembering to open the door before he walked into it; even if he'd been doing it this way for longer, a few months' worth of habit wasn't going to go away that easily-, heading along a few corridors before he finally reached his destination, knocking on the door in front of him.

"Yes?" Doctor Lee said, looking around and starting slightly as he saw who was coming in. "Oh, Spike; what can I... do for you?"

"Just wondered if you could help me look up... some friends of mine in this world," Spike said, shrugging slightly; Lee might be a bit odd in either reality, and he was definitely uncomfortable with Spike's anomalous nature no matter what world they were in- even if he was just puzzled at how Spike ever got recruited by the SGC in this world rather than his counterpart back home occasionally freaking out about the 'intangible vampire' thing-, but he was a fairly pleasant chap to talk to, and Sam had described him as a capable scientist who was always willing to help out when he could. "Only joined the SGC back home a few months ago, and my... condition... meant I haven't had much practise or reason to check through these things; just thought... well, you're not doing much, I've got squat on right now, good a time as any to get some answers..."

He shrugged awkwardly, hating how pathetic he sounded even to himself, but, to his credit, Doctor Lee just nodded and turned around to turn the computer on, tapping a few keys as he entered in the names that Spike gave him.

"Buffy Summers..." Lee said, thoughtfully studying the information on the screen after Spike had finished recounting the last of the group of names he had asked for. "You say she lived in Sunnydale?"

"Well, that's where she'd have been when this world went its own way from mine, anyway," Spike confirmed. "What happened to her here?"

"According to this, she was involved in an NID operation against what they thought was a Goa'uld presence on Earth-" Lee began.

"NID?" Spike interrupted, looking curiously at Lee, manners forgotten as he remembered the tales he'd heard about that group in his own world. "Heard of those guys back home, but didn't get much out of it beyond that they're some kind of Earth intelligence sods who had some sort of splinter a few years back; bunch of 'em got taken over by the remaining Goa'uld in our world."

"Oh," Lee said, before he shrugged slightly. "Well, they definitely haven't been taken over by the Goa'uld here; actually, in the current climate, we're forced to... tolerate them a bit more than we did in the past, given that most of the more official agencies just aren't equipped to cope with the kind of situations we're faced with these days."

After Spike nodded at Lee in a prompting gesture, Lee turned back to the screen before him and continued reading. "Anyway, after Anubis's invasion, the SGC were given first priority on any cults involving anyone claiming to be a living god, and... well, there was this woman in Sunnydale who proclaimed that she was a god-"

"_Glory_?" Spike said, his eyes widening at the implications of this new information.

"You knew her?" Lee asked, looking back at the vampire inquiringly.

"Yeah, and she wasn't a goddamn Goa'uld; she was an actual _god_," Spike said, looking slightly scornfully over at Lee, enjoying the scientist's shock at his last statement before he continued speaking. "The woman got banished from her dimension and ended up hanging around here looking for the way back; in my world, she ended up hunting for this Key thing that she needed to get back home for a year before we managed to take her out..."

Noting the awkward expression on Lee's face, Spike swallowed apprehensively, taking a moment to bring himself back under control before he continued speaking. "I take it things didn't go that smoothly here?"

"That's... probably a good assumption; I don't have clearance to access more than the basic details, but what is here is _not _encouraging," Lee said, looking uncomfortably back at the vampire. "The operation is recorded as having been a success- they were eventually able to corner this 'Glory' after they discovered her attacking someone on the street for reasons that weren't established-, but although the team was able to weaken her after taking her by surprise and hitting her with a large number of bullets and zat blasts- it's recorded as being enough to disintegrate anyone, but whatever she was she could take far more punishment than expected-, she was still strong enough to..."

Lee swallowed slightly as he read the words before him one more time before he looked back at Spike. "Did Glory do much damage to anyone in your world?"

"Well, she drove some people nuts- something 'bout her feeding on human's mental energy to cope with her own mind having trouble thinking on our level-, but I don't think she did much physical damage to anyone..." Spike said, shrugging slightly awkwardly at Lee; he acknowledged that Glory had probably hurt _some _people while she was active, but since he'd been soulless back then and he'd never known anyone she'd injured (Tara and the Knights of Byzantium didn't count, given that she'd recovered later and he'd never really cared about the Knights; it's not like anyone _knew _that Joyce's tumour had been Glory's fault, after all), it had never really been that important to him, particularly when most of the people she'd brain-sucked returned to some kind of normality after she'd died.

"Well... I can't say what she was like on a larger scale- there weren't reports of her doing anything in particular, but that might just be because they didn't bother putting that information into this file-, but from what I'm reading here, the final confrontation with her resulted in at least one serious injury," Lee said, his expression making it clear that this wasn't going to be good news. "When Glory was weakened by the weapons they used against her- apparently an accumulation of zat attacks and conventional munitions was enough to basically overcome whatever physical strength and natural invulnerability she possessed-, Miss Summers attempted to attack her more directly- they refer to her as the team's 'technical specialist', but from what I can read here she was the only person who could have been referred to as such-, but when she got in close enough to actually attack Glory... her opponent tore her arm off."

If Spike wasn't already dead, his blood would have frozen at that statement.

Buffy had lost an _arm_?

"According to the report," Lee continued- Spike resisted the urge to punch the guy for sounding so damn clinical about the Slayer's fate; Lee had never _met _Buffy, it was perfectly understandable for him not to get the significance of that revelation-, "Miss Summers's subsequent punch apparently went almost straight through Glory's head- there's some speculation that the amount of adrenaline, hormones and other chemicals her body produced to cope with the agony gave her a temporary burst of strength-, but the damage was done; not only did she lose that arm, but she sustained a not-inconsiderable amount of cranial trauma when Glory fought back in her last moments, dislodging one of her corneas and leaving her virtually blind in one eye, as well as some reports about significant damage to her internal organs caused when she lost her arm. There are some reports that she was given treatment by various factions in the NID after the fact, but I can't find anything about what that treatment consisted of; there seems to be some... clearance difficulties..."

"Clearance?" Spike repeated, looking at Lee with a sharp glare. "As in, you don't have the _clearance _to find out more about what happened to her? In other words, she might be _associated _with these bastards now?"

"Well... that's the most likely guess, anyway; I can't really give you any _definite _information..." Lee said, looking at Spike with just a slight apprehension about his body language; evidently Spike's attitude wasn't encouraging the other man to be calm.

"It's... it's OK," Spike said, pausing to calm himself as he tried to look reassuringly at the other scientist; as angry as he was right now, losing his temper wouldn't get him anywhere. "So, if Buffy's unknown, what about her sister?"

"Dawn Summers was apparently transferred to the custody of a Doctor Rupert Giles shortly after her elder sister's involvement in the NID operation," Lee replied, looking back at the screen. "They apparently left America to return to Britain a year or so ago, accompanied by a Miss Faith Lehane- well, Doctor Giles brought three one-way tickets to England when he left the country and Miss Lehane departed at the same time-"

"Hold on a minute; _Faith_?" Spike interrupted, looking incredulously at Lee. "Last time I checked in my reality, Faith was in _prison _when things fell apart here; how'd she get clearance to leave the bloody country?"

"Well, there's some stuff here about a personal request from the British Ambassador on behalf of the Home Secretary resulting in the charges against Miss Lehane being dropped, but again the full details of what happened to her are a bit above my clearance level," Lee said, looking apologetically at Spike. "Sorry I can't tell you any more..."

"Don't worry about it; that's enough on her for the moment," Spike said, waving a dismissive hand at Lee as he thought over that particular new piece of information; given the apparent lack of records about Buffy since her time with those 'NID' sods, coupled with the Watcher's Council's ties to various political agencies, it sounded like they'd arranged for Faith to be removed from prison to ensure that there was at least _some _kind of Slayer presence active, but whether that meant Buffy was dead or not was something Spike suspected he wasn't going to find out any time soon...

"Anyway," he said, looking at Lee with a slight smile to conceal his own doubts, "how about... Harris?"

"Well, we have an Alexander Harris from Sunnydale listed as having joined the army a couple of years ago, but that's not particularly surprising; after news of the Stargate program went public, people tended to become more concerned about doing something to deal with the current situation," Lee said, shaking his head grimly at the memory as he continued to read from the screen. "He's made a fair impression on most of his superiors, but since he enlisted directly he's not really had many opportunities to advance as an NCO, although he's made a reputation as someone who's good at thinking on his feet. Anya Jenkins was listed as his co-habitant in an apartment he owned at the time he enlisted, and they were apparently in a relationship for a while afterwards, but she seems to have vanished a year or so ago- dropped off the grid as far as I can tell-, and there aren't even any records of her going back further than five years anyway; there's various school records confirming that she was attending Sunnydale High for her senior year five years ago, but that's about it."

"Yeah, well, her history was always a bit complicated anyway," Spike said, shrugging dismissively even as he wondered about the implications of that news; if she'd 'dropped off the grid', did that mean that Anya had become a vengeance demon again in this reality- particularly since the timings matched the time she'd regained her powers back home-, or was it something else? "How about the others?"

"Willow Rosenberg was recently employed as a software writer for a major computer company- a couple of sources suggest that it has some ties to the NID, but there's nothing definite one way or the other and she herself has never done anything suspicious anyway- immediately after graduating from Sunnydale University," Lee continued, his attention back on the screen. "Her partner Tara Maclay seems to have set herself up as a 'faith healer' of some sort; uses various herbal remedies and things to help treat diseases in some of the rougher parts of society, that kind of thing-"

"Hold on; she _uses_?" Spike interrupted, looking at Lee in surprise, torn between wanting to believe the first encouraging news he'd heard and not wanting to believe it; after everything this world had thrown at him, the idea that it had something _that _good was almost impossible to believe. "As in, present tense? She's _alive_?"

"Tara Maclay?" Lee said, looking curiously at Spike. "Yes, she's alive... oh; she's not where you come from?"

"Got shot by a stray bullet from some nut last year," Spike said, shaking his head grimly at the memory. "Poor girl never did anything to anyone that'd merit getting shot- bastard family kept her terrorised for years by telling her she'd become a monster just to make her stay home and do the work for 'em; all she wanted to do was get away from those bastards and make her own life away from all that bollocks-, but... well, crap happens, I s'pose."

"Oh," Lee said again, looking sympathetically at Spike. "I... I'm sorry."

"Thanks," Spike said, nodding briefly in response to Lee's awkward apology; the other man might not really know him that well, and definitely hadn't known Tara, but it was still nice to be acknowledged as someone with feelings about that kind of thing.

Even if he and Tara had never exactly hung out together on their own when she'd been alive, she'd still been one of the few people to treat him decently even after his feelings for Buffy became public; that won her more than a few points as far as he was concerned.

"Is there anything on... Cordelia Chase?" he asked at last, deciding to focus on the last question facing him; since he couldn't remember the name of that Watcher who'd joined Angel's team, and Captain Forehead was unlikely to have any kind of paper record, the ex-Cheerleader was really the only way he'd ever have a hope of finding out any kind of clue regarding what had happened to his grandsire in this world.

"Cordelia Chase did a few auditions in Los Angeles while working for some kind of unlicensed detective agency," Lee explained, his attention back on the computer once again. "After Anubis's attack, the agency seemed to get a degree of official status based on Doctor Giles's recommendation- I don't know what kind of strings he had to pull, but the police commissioner of the city acknowledged Doctor Giles when he issued the order granting them official authority-, and Miss Chase currently alternates between her work at the agency and some work on this mystery drama series; 'Lockley', it seems to be called..."

"'Lockley'?" Spike repeated.

"It's about a somewhat loose-cannon detective called Kate Lockley; Miss Chase apparently plays the department's medical examiner," Lee said, although the way his eyes studied the screen before him made it clear that he had only just read this particular piece of information.

"Ah," Spike said, nodding thoughtfully as he took in everything that he'd just heard, before smiling briefly at Lee. "Well... thanks for that; I appreciate the help."

This new world definitely wasn't perfect- Buffy and Anya unaccounted for, no real _definite _idea what had happened to Angel, stuff like that-, but at least he knew that most of them were still around; the fact that Tara was still alive in this world at least gave it some kind of positive 'leg-up' over his own world, even if Anya's disappearance raised a few question marks.

Nodding briefly at Lee in thanks, he walked out of the office and headed down another passage, only to run into Sam as she walked along the corridor, shaking her head as she stared at the files in her hands.

"Problem?" Spike asked, looking at her with a slight smile as she looked up at him.

"Just... stuck, really," the lieutenant-colonel replied, looking back at the notes before she looked at Spike as he started walking along beside her, noticing a slight dejection in his manner. "How about you?"

"Well, I just found out where most of the old guard from my pre-amulet life are these days," Spike replied, shrugging slightly as he looked at Sam. "On the bright side, this one girl who died back home's still alive, but two people have dropped off the bloody map, the only person who really liked me as a friend has moved over to England, and I've got no way to _know _where a couple of the others are because they don't sodding exist on paper..."

"Oh," Sam said, looking at Spike sympathetically. "I'm... I'm sorry."

"Thanks," Spike replied, giving Sam a brief smile of thanks. "How about you? Learn anything interesting about yourself here?"

"Well," Sam said, shaking her head slightly as she spoke, obviously surprised at the news she was about to reveal, "it turns out that I was married in this reality."

"Really?" Spike said, his previously weak smile becoming more teasing as he looked at her. "You met the other half yet?"

"We're divorced, but I actually do know his counterpart," Sam said, looking slightly awkwardly at him. "It's... well, I was married to Rodney McKay."

"Oh, I- hold on, as in the slightly chubby Canadian bugger who worked in Atlantis?" Spike said, looking incredulously at her. "You _married _that sod here?"

"Trust me, I don't know how I got to that point either," Sam said, shaking her head slightly at the memory before she turned to look more firmly at Spike. "That's not important right now; what _is _important is that I need to find General Hammond."

"What seems to be the problem?" the distinctive deep Texan accent of the general in question suddenly said, prompting the two to turn around as the bald man walked up behind them, now wearing a suit that Spike was fairly sure was his 'dress blues' (Or whatever the term was).

"General," Sam said, automatically straightening slightly as she looked at the man who was officially her superior, even if he wasn't technically _her _superior (Now that Spike thought about it, did rank restrictions even apply in this kind of thing, given that Sam was actually a higher rank than her counterpart and therefore obviously not entirely part of the chain of command?). "I've been going over the calculations, and..."

"Yes, I received the information from the science department earlier," Hammond said, indicating a nearby elevator as the doors opened, Sam and Spike walking into the elevator after him as he pressed a button for an upper level. "They informed me you have additional concerns about power?"

"Hold on; _additional _concerns?" Spike said, looking sharply at Sam. "I thought you said this would take _less _power-"

"I underestimated how much power was lost during the fight against the Ori ships," Sam clarified, looking briefly at Spike before focusing her attention back on Hammond. "I'm sorry, sir, but your ZPM was simply too over-taxed. I think I may have traded one power requirement problem for another."

"Not necessarily," Hammond said

As the doors opened, Spike was surprised to find himself facing a large number of men in suits, along with various paintings on the walls that he was fairly sure he'd never seen during his 'hauntings' of the SGC back in his reality (Which, considering that he'd covered virtually the whole base when he was bored, meant that this was probably another example of a difference between this world and theirs).

"Uh... what's with the suits?" Spike asked, as the two of them followed Hammond through the corridors.

"Secret service," Hammond clarified.

"Since when have you had secret service outside your office?" Sam asked, looking at the bald man in confusion.

"Hasn't been my office for three years," Hammond replied, before one of the men opened a door and showed them into the briefing room, revealing a variety of unfamiliar men in a combination of suits and formal military uniforms gathered around the table, with a man Spike quickly recognised dressed in an unfamiliar formal suit at the head of the table.

"Colonel!" this world's Hank Landry said, walking down from the other end of the table to smile at Sam before his expression faltered slightly as he looked at the other new arrival. "Mr... Spike. Good to finally meet you."

"Colonel Carter, Mr Spike," Hammond said, "meet President Hank Landry."

"_President_?" Sam repeated, looking at Landry in surprise. "Of the United States?"

"That's right," Landry replied, looking between the three people before him. "Is there a problem?"

"Let's just say things are... _really _different where we're from," Spike said, shrugging slightly awkwardly at the other man when Sam didn't reply immediately.

"I understand you're dealing with a little power shortage," Landry said, his attention back on Sam after a brief glance at Spike made it clear that the vampire wasn't going to elaborate. "How much do you need?"

"Uh, well, about 700 gigawatts," Sam replied. "That's roughly eighty percent of the power generating capacity of the continental United States."

"So, it's doable then," Landry said with a slight smile.

"I'm sorry," Sam said, looking uncomfortably at the man before her. "I don't understand."

"We've known about the condition of the ZPM for some time, Colonel," Hammond explained as Landry briefly turned aside to sign some papers that an aid had brought him. "In addition to our Major Carter's research, as a backup we've been building an infrastructure to channel energy to the Ancient chair directly from the U.S. power grid."

"Not enough to give us the upper hand in a shooting battle against a whole fleet," Landry said, as he led the three of them to the table, "but if your plan works, there won't be any battles at all."

He turned to address one of the nearest men, a tall man with white hair that Spike- and apparently Sam- didn't recognise. "Charlie, I need a speech explaining to the American people why it's a good thing they'll be without power for an undisclosed period of time."

"Yes sir," the other man said, walking off as Landry turned back to Sam.

"Pack your things," he said. "You're going to Area 51."

"_We're _going," Sam interjected firmly, indicating Spike before Landry could turn away.

Spike might be apprehensive about leaving the SGC- for all that it wasn't the one he'd grown used to, it was still what he'd grown used to-, but he had to be grateful for that announcement; the last thing he wanted was to be cut off from the only person he really knew here.

The people at the SGC might not have done anything 'wrong' yet, but the stories Spike had heard about Willow's vampire double were enough to make him more than _slightly _nervous about the possibility of him being left on his own in an alternate universe...

* * *

The flight to Area 51 hadn't been as bad as it could have been- Sam had been able to subtly delay their departure until it was dark to ensure that nobody realised what Spike was due to his reaction to sunlight, and Spike had managed to grab a couple of quick snacks in the form of the blood bags from the infirmary without anyone noticing-, but Spike quickly came to the conclusion that he wasn't that wild about being stuck here any more than he had enjoyed being stuck at the SGC.

Admittedly, there was something _kind _of cool about learning that all the theories everyone had out there about Area 51 were pretty much right- it really _was _the location where the government worked on alien technology-, but there still wasn't that much he could do apart from help Sam carry the equipment right now; Lee was being more of a help to her right now as they set up the device near some large crystal-throne-like thing, along with various assorted other scientists that Spike had never seen before. They'd apparently completed the last connection a few minutes ago, but there were still some last-minute technical details about voltage requirement and storage capacity that needed to be straightened out before they were ready to start channelling everything into this gizmo...

"_My fellow Americans and citizens of all nations_," Landry's voice said from a television set that someone had set up nearby, "_tonight our world faces a grave threat. The same hostile forces that recently attacked us without warning or provocation are again massing for another assault. Let me assure you that we intend to meet this aggression as we did previously with unwavering resolve and fully confident that we will once again emerge victorious__. __In order to achieve this victory, we will need to divert a significant portion of our electrical generating capacity to a government facility in the Nevada desert_..."

"OK," Lee said, as though Landry's words had been a cue for him to make a statement as he looked up from his position crouching alongside the throne-thing, "try it now."

"We're still getting too much variance," Sam said, shaking her head after she briefly tapped a few keys on her keyboard.

"Damn it..." Lee muttered, before heading over to another computer that was also linked up to the device. "Uh, give me a sec."

Glancing over at the television screen as Landry's speech continued, Spike wondered how the supernatural world was coping with these events; were they trying to rally witches to carry out some kind of whacky last-minute ritual that might be able to fend off the Ori, or were they trying to find some way to evacuate Earth through a dimensional portal if they couldn't save it?

It was useless to speculate, of course- it wasn't like he'd ever know for sure what the answer was-, but that didn't mean he couldn't wonder...

"..._believe, that out of adversity, greatness is born_," Landry said, Spike turning his attention back to the television out of a lack of anything else to maintain his interest right now. "_And with your help, we will emerge from this stronger, and more unified than ever before. Thank you, and God bless us all_."

"That's it," Lee said, standing back from his laptop and walking around the desk to another computer to Sam's left. "All systems are in the green."

"All right," Sam said, turning her attention to the same computer. "Let's plug it in."

"Allow me," Spike said, stepping forward to press a button on the laptop in front of them before Lee could do it himself- if he'd come this far, he was going to do _something _to help out, no matter how small it was in the overall scale of things-, stepping back to watch as the screen apparently displaying their current power output on top of a diagram of the United States began to rise, a section that seemed to be focused on their current location displaying an ever-increasing number even as they watched.

Spike may not know how much they needed, but he had to admit that he liked the way things were looking for them so far...

"_Colonel_," Hammond's voice suddenly said over the radio, his tone a harsh, abrupt one that put Spike uncomfortably in mind of a frustrated Angelus, "_you're out of time_."

"We're almost there, sir," Sam replied, looking upwards at the apparent source of the voice. "Capacitors are loading."

"Seventy-five percent and climbing!" Lee said, glancing at the power input screen

"_It's now or never, Colonel_," Hammond said again.

"This is an all or nothing proposition, sir," Sam countered. "If we initiate without sufficient power, the field will just collapse."

"We're at eighty-five percent," Lee added, still studying the screen with increasing anxiety. "Ninety... ninety-two... it's slowing down; we're not going to make it!"

"_Your position is about to be compromised_!" Hammond yelled over the radio. "_Colonel_?"

"Ninety-three percent," Lee said, turning to look at Sam and Spike after another period of staring at the display showed no sign that it was going to get any higher. "That's got to be close enough."

"I guess we're about to find out," Sam said.

"Heigh-ho, here we go," Spike said, crossing his fingers out of a lack of anything else to do as Sam activated the device and a brilliant blue wave burst from it at a far more rapid rate than anything Spike had witnessed the device produce before.

"So... did it work?" he asked, looking curiously at Sam after a few moments of apprehensive silence had gone by, only for his question to be apparently answered when the entire lab was suddenly filled by some kind of golden energy, the effect putting Spike in mind of some kind of energy waterfall due to the pattern in the 'light' before it vanished.

"Whoa, wow, what the hell was that?" Lee asked, jumping back in shock at what they'd just witnessed.

"Ori weapons fire, passing right through us!" Sam said, smiling broadly.

"_Yes_!" Spike said, raising one hand to give Sam a high-five before Lee, grinning like a maniac, suddenly pulled her into an enthusiastic hug, only to step back with an embarrassed grin as he realised what he'd just done.

"So... how long can we stay like this?" Spike asked, looking uncertainly at her.

"It shouldn't take long; the Ori aren't going to wait around when they don't understand what we've done," Sam said, smiling slightly at him. "Once they've given up and left, we can turn it off and get back to work on getting ourselves home."

Spike bit back his automatic retort that it was never going to be that easy; that had been more effective when he'd had potential alternatives, even if they were basically selfish ones, but right now all he wanted to do was get back home himself...

Just once, would it be _possible_ for the universe to prove him wrong and make it easy for them to get home?


	42. The Day Before the Darkness

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Things are starting to diverge a BIT from the canonical version of events in this chapter; hope you like what I've come up with for this reality

The Ghost in the Team

As he sat in the limousine alongside Sam, Spike found himself considering and disregarding the prospect of resigning from this 'job' for the umpteenth time; no matter how uncomfortable he found the stupid suit he was forced to wear in this job, he wasn't going to let Sam go into any kind of situation if he wasn't there to ensure that they were both available to get back home.

After Landry had identified 'Major Carter' as the person responsible for their recent escape from destruction at the hands of the Ori, Sam and Spike had each insisted that Spike be given an official role as Sam's bodyguard in order to ensure that the two of them would remain in contact with each other even when Sam was attending public functions. Landry had initially offered the services of some of his secret service staff as Sam's protective detail- Sam had 'charitably' suggested that Landry was just concerned about relying on the skills of someone he didn't know to protect her after what she'd done, even if Spike had his own doubts-, but after Spike had single-handedly defeated three of them at once in a practise fight, he had acknowledged that the vampire was sufficient protection on his own (Even if he still didn't know what Spike really was).

Sam had even managed to figure out a way to provisionally allow him to walk in the sunlight; using a Goa'uld shield device she'd managed to acquire from Area 51, as well as using a stolen needle to provide Spike with small injections of her blood- each of them had agreed that they weren't interested in Spike actually _feeding _from Sam; apart from the emotional 'issues' involved, the resulting scar could attract unwanted attention no matter where Spike fed from-, Sam had been able to modify the shield to only protect Spike from the ultraviolet radiation of the sun, allowing him to otherwise walk around and interact with other objects and people without any side-effects. He had to wear gloves while out in public to ensure that nobody realised what he was doing, but in general it seemed to be working fairly well, so long as the shield was left on a low enough setting to ensure that no other security systems could detect it (Sam had worried about having to turn it to such a low setting that it lost the ability to deflect weapons fire, but Spike had assured her that he could handle being shot).

Neither of them were entirely comfortable with their sudden public status, but if it was the only way to keep Landry satisfied while they worked on figuring out a way back to their world, they were each resigned to dealing with the situation in front of them; Spike might have it easier since Landry hadn't even identified him by name in most of his recent announcements, but the fact that he was working so closely with Sam meant that he was still in the spotlight by proxy.

If they'd been in their own world, he might have actually rather enjoyed the thrill- it wasn't every vampire who got a chance to spend time at high-class parties like this, even if they'd enjoy it for a different reason than he would-, but as it was, they weren't, and he wasn't; the fact that they were doing this to support some guy whose talk about 'dangerous times ahead' in his bloody speeches didn't encourage the idea that he'd just let them walk did little to help Spike's mood...

Plus, he had to appreciate the company, given how well Sam carried off the black dress she was currently wearing even if she was obviously on-edge at going out in something like that; just because he was involved with Vala back home- and he was more than slightly sure that Sam felt _something _for their still-frustratingly-absent archaeologist-, that didn't mean he couldn't appreciate the fact that his job involved him spending time with a hot woman dressed like that.

_Vala_...

Spike cursed the brief-but-significant spike of depression and rage that filled him at the thought of that name; after all those weeks of being with Vala while not being able to _do _anything because of his physical limitations, he finally got his body back, only to be incapable of actually 'sharing the experience' because of some fluke experiment.

_Damnit_, he missed Vala; the first chance he had to actually _do _anything with her since he met her, and they were separated by a bloody _universe_...

"Bill," Sam said, her voice drawing Spike's attention back to the present- he'd tuned out while the TV was playing another showing of their earlier press conference in their limo to take a few moments of shut-eye, even if the rest of his senses had been on the alert- as she spoke into her phone, "tell me you have good news!"

Spike didn't need to be able to hear the other end of her conversation to know that the news wasn't that great; her dejected sigh answered that question for him.

"All right," she said, a grim but resigned expression on her face, "I'll be back tomorrow. We can go over it then. Bye."

Just as she turned off the phone, the limousine they were in came to a halt and the door opened, leaving Spike to force his out and glare intimidatingly at the various representatives of the paparazzi gathered on the red carpet leading up to the White House. Even as a couple of other secret service agents gathered around Sam, Spike took care to always stay close to her, his vampiric senses focusing on her unique scent even amid the crowd, glaring at people through his sunglasses as he resisted the instinctive urge to use his 'vamp face' to scare them off.

It was times like this that made him wonder why people bothered being famous; the cash was good, but depending on your line of work privacy would be difficult...

* * *

Once she was inside the party, Sam wondered if there was any way that she could have just avoided this whole awkward experience.

It wasn't like she'd never visited the White House back home, but then it was always quieter briefing opportunities to fill in the politicians on the implications of some of the recent events or discoveries that they'd made in order to persuade some of the more cynical senators who were in on the Stargate program's existence to continue to provide them with the necessary funding to continue some of their investigations or experiments into certain discoveries. This party was not only a lot more public than those meetings had been, but she also had simultaneously a more important and less important role than she had served in those meetings; she might be one of the reasons the party was being thrown in the first place, but she still wasn't actually _needed _there.

"Major, it's an honour," one of the other guests said to her (That was another problem; Sam had to constantly remind herself that she hadn't actually been promoted in this reality before she corrected anyone about her rank), Sam trying not to look too uncomfortable as Spike stood a few inches behind her, his eyes constantly scanning the room around her behind his glasses. "On behalf of the people of the great state of Idaho, thank you."

"Oh, well..." Sam said, cursing her discomfort as Spike stood silently beside her; what did it say about her that she was uncomfortable talking to politicians but was so relaxed about having an actual _vampire _constantly in her presence. "You're, uh, very kind, sir."

"Keep up the good work, dear," the senator's wife added.

"Thank you," Sam said, trying to smile gratefully at the other woman as the two walked away; she thought that the senator paused to look at her for a moment, but a slight shift in Spike's position prompted him to keep moving before she could be certain one way or the other.

"Enjoying the party?" Landry said, the President walking over to her as he spoke, prompting Spike to shift his position slightly.

"Uh…I'm not sure that's exactly the right word, sir," Sam said, trying to be as diplomatic as possible.

"Have some champagne," Landry said, his tone almost disturbingly casual. "Relax."

"I guess I'm just not used to all the attention," Sam clarified, looking at the large group around her.

"They do things differently where you come from?" Landry asked, raising his eyebrows as he looked at them in an almost jokingly quizzical manner.

"Considering that the Stargate program's still a sodding secret back home, we don't really get out much," Spike said in a low voice, glaring briefly at Landry in a disdainful manner before Sam stepped in front of him, shooting the vampire a brief warning glare before she looked back at Landry.

"Like Spike said, we tend to keep Stargate-related celebrations a bit more... low-key... back home," she said, smiling slightly awkwardly at the president; as much as she agreed with Spike's essential sentiment, they couldn't anger the people they needed in order to get home. "Plus, I can't quite stop feeling a bit like an impostor; I mean, everything thinks I'm _Major _Samantha Carter..."

"That won't be a problem any more," Landry said with a smile. "We're promoting you."

"Yeah..." Sam said, exchanging an uncomfortable glance with Spike before she looked back at Landry. "That's not the point, sir."

"People here have been through a lot lately," Landry said, apparently dismissing her discomfort as irrelevant. "They need something to believe in. Your timing is impeccable."

Looking over at Spike once again, Sam was only slightly relieved to see that he didn't like the implications of that last statement any more than she did; evidently they were both aware- even if they'd come by that awareness from different angles- that turning people into symbols made it difficult for them to get away from what they symbolised later on...

"No security without freedom!" a voice suddenly yelled from somewhere off to the side, prompting Sam and Spike to turn around and take in the sight of the speaker; a man wearing street clothing, clearly not one of the guests at this party, shouting angrily in their direction as he tried to shove his way through the various others guests.

"Sir," one of the aides said, hurrying over to stand beside Landry, "let's get you out of here."

Stuck for anything else that he could do in this situation, Spike simply adjusted his glasses and followed Sam and Landry as they were escorted towards the centre of the room, leaving the other guests to be pushed to the side as the protestor continued to rant something about the voices of tyranny that Sam couldn't hear fully and didn't entirely like the sound of; even with her limited knowledge of the larger political situation in this universe, she was still sure that there were some terms nobody wanted to hear in this kind of situation...

The sight of the guy being struck by a long black object that could only be a Goa'uld pain stick only added to Sam's concerns about the world that she and Spike were currently trapped in.

"Let's get him out of here!" one of the agents said, Spike reaching out to instinctively grab Sam's arm moments before she and Landry was enveloped by a burst of white light...

* * *

When the light faded, the three of them were standing in a corridor that rang no bells in Spike's mind, although Sam clearly recognised it even if she expressed obvious surprise at the sight.

"_Prometheus_," Sam said, looking at her surroundings in obvious surprise. Spike wondered what was so surprising about their location, but Landry simply nodded and walked into a nearby room, leaving Sam and Spike with no other choice but to follow him.

"_Welcome to Air Force One, Mr. President_," a voice said over a radio as they walked into a large room with a presidential seal on the wall, along with an elaborate wooden desk and comfortable leather chairs that just didn't fit Spike's vision of what should be found on a spaceship. "_We'll expecting a message from our agent soon, but is there anything you need_?"

"No, not for the moment, Colonel, thank you," Landry said, walking casually into the room and heading for a desk as the door closed behind them; glancing back, Spike noted two guards moving into position to stand in front of the door. "Sorry about that. Want a drink?"

"Not while I'm on duty," Spike said, resisting the urge to make a 'never drink' joke; the line hadn't been that bad when he'd seen it in the original movie- not that he'd admit that to anyone-, but it was so hard finding the right opportunity to use it when he would actually rather enjoy a drink most of the time.

"No…thank you," Sam said, shaking her head as she looked at Landry on confusion. "Sir, what the hell just happened?"

"My security detail can get a little overprotective," Landry said nonchalantly as he poured himself a drink from a table of decanters. "Probably just could've gone out the back way."

"I _think_ we were talking about the guy who just came charging in yelling about freedom and security," Spike said, glaring pointedly at Landry as he removed his glasses; the black shades looked good, but sometimes you just wanted to make a point.

"Not everyone is happy about some of the compromises we've had to make," Landry said, sighing as he spoke, even if the lack of eye contact made it clear that he knew he was on shaky ground with that statement.

"Compromises like martial law?" Sam asked in a pointed manner.

"Believe me, Colonel, I have no desire to go down in history as the man who destroyed civil liberties in America," Landry said, turning to face the two of them. "But I think you'll agree that compared to other Presidents, I've faced some pretty unique challenges."

As he took a drink, Spike only needed to briefly glance at Sam to know that she was thinking the same thing as him; Landry might _say _that he'd only done what he did because of the unique challenges facing him, but that didn't change the fact that he'd done enough to have protestors literally up in arms against him.

Spike wasn't even going to pretend that he understood politics, but he knew enough to know that he didn't like what he was finding out about this mess they were in at the moment...

"_Mr President_?" a voice suddenly said from an upper corner of the room. "_We're receiving a message from our agent_."

"Put it through," Landry said.

"Agent?" Sam asked, looking at Landry curiously.

"Even with our focus on Earth, we've maintained a couple of unofficial offworld agents," Landry said, taking another sip from his drink before he put his glass down and walked over to a wall that displayed a large screen. "Normally knowledge of them is a need-to-know basis, but considering that you're in a similar position, there's no reason for you to leave."

As he activated the viewing screen, Spike and Sam's eyes widened in surprise at the sight on the screen before them; while both of them recognised Vala, now wearing a tight black outfit, the other figure was only familiar to Spike, as a light-haired woman in dark red stood alongside Vala with a slight smile on her face.

"_Hello_," this world's version of Anya said- Spike instinctively moved off to the side out of direct view of the screen; he still didn't know what had happened to his counterpart in this world and this wasn't the time to find out about something that complicated when Landry still didn't know _what _he really was-, looking at Landry with a brief nod. "_We've picked up another mothership; where do you want it_?"

"Just leave it in the Antarctic shipyards; we'll work on stripping it later," Landry said, his response a curt one that suggested that he was used to this kind of discussion.

"_Stripping it_?" Vala said, looking at Landry in surprise. "_This thing used to belong to Ares, I'll have you know; it was one of the most efficient ships out there_-"

"And we've got enough Goa'uld ships out there with the Lucian Alliance carving up their territory; we need to establish our own fleet rather than using other races' ships," Landry said firmly. "Get the ship to the shipyards and we'll get to work on stripping it for material; we'll discuss payment when I get back."

"_Gotcha_," Anya replied, before the connection was terminated, leaving Sam and Spike staring incredulously at the President.

"Is there a problem?" Landry asked, looking at them with a slight smile.

"You mean, aside from the fact that I was informed that Vala Mal Doran was in prison?" Sam said, glaring slightly at Landry.

"And what the _hell _is Anya doing with her?" Spike added incredulously. "I _know _that girl- or I knew the version of her from back home, anyway-; there's no _way _she had the skill for that kind of thing!"

"We needed an easily deniable pair of agents to keep an eye on offworld activities after things became... difficult," Landry explained, looking grimly at the two cross-universal visitors. "We were able to quell the worst of the riots when we helped the Asgard defeat the Replicators-"

"How did you do that?" Sam asked, prior questions forgotten in the face of this new information.

"We..." Landry began, before he looked at them in a grim manner that made it clear he didn't like what he was about to say even as he was resolved to say it. "President Hayes gave the Asgard unrestricted access to the corpse of Colonel O'Neill."

Judging by the horrified expression on Sam's face at that news, she hadn't been expecting that.

"Uh... how would his corpse make any difference to anything?" Spike asked, looking apologetically at Sam before he spoke; he might not know O'Neill that much personally, but he'd heard enough to know what kind of impact the guy had made on his original team, and recognised that this wasn't going to be easy for Sam to hear even if it wasn't about the one she knew.

"He died because his brain was suffering from neural collapse after exposure to an Ancient repository of knowledge," Landry explained, turning from Spike to look grimly at Sam. "Your counterpart and Doctor Jackson were able to get him into an Ancient stasis pod in the Antarctic outpost shortly after his death, but when the Asgard arrived Thor didn't have the resources available to repair the extent of the damage that his mind had sustained, given how much time had elapsed between him receiving the download and him going into stasis; all he could do was take a short-lived imprint of Colonel O'Neill's mind from what brain tissue hadn't been destroyed and use that to help them search through the knowledge to find the technology needed to create the anti-Replicator weapon."

"Oh," Spike said, trying not to think about the obvious devastation on Sam's face at that particular news (He wished that he could express his sympathy, but it wasn't like he even knew the guy that well back home; the general version of Jack O'Neill had spent more time with the original SG-1 than anyone else).

"Anyway," Landry said, "with the Replicators destroyed and immediate threats resolved- without the Replicators to distract them, the Asgard were able to divert more resources into opposing the Goa'uld-, we were able to calm most of the riots, but the need to provide the public with advanced technology to compensate for the harm we'd caused by keeping the Goa'uld secret.."

He shrugged. "Well, Miss Mal Doran's skills were obvious after she tried to steal the _Prometheus_, and when we discovered the anomalies in Miss Jenkins' background, she was a convenient asset to assign to work with Miss Mal Doran; excellent skills at getting people to tell her what she wants to hear, while also possessing plausible deniability in case anyone else out there decides to use them as an excuse to declare war against us while we're worrying about the Ori."

Spike had no idea how he should feel about all this crap, but he was increasingly sure that he didn't like what he was finding out about this world.

These bastards were using Anya... because her past didn't quite 'add up' and they gave her a choice between doing stuff for them that they could deny they'd asked her to do if she got caught, or...?

OK, Spike didn't know what the 'or' would have been, but the more he saw of the mess this world had made of itself the less he liked it.

_God_, he just wanted to go home...

* * *

In a dark room thousands of miles away, a figure sat and watched the news about the recently-disrupted party at the White House, eyes narrowing as a gleaming hand tightened over a glass, the glass shattering and the liquid trickling over fingers unimpeded by shards of glass as their owner stared at the image on the screen.

"Spike," the figure said simply, contempt in every aspect of the short word.

Why was it that the people you always really _wanted _to stay dead _wouldn't_?

She didn't know how he was suddenly alive again, but she'd make sure that he regretted ever bothering to come back; after everything she'd lost, there was no goddamn _way _that _bastard _got to come back instead of anyone else...

* * *

AN 2: Any guesses who the figure at the end was?

If you can't, don't worry; she'll be appearing in the next chapter, in a more significant divergence from canon events...

On that topic, hope you like what I did with Vala and Anya here, and that my idea about Jack's fate in this reality seems plausible; it just seemed to me that, if SG-1 were late enough in getting back to Earth that Anubis was able to launch a full-scale attack, Jack's condition when he was put into stasis probably wouldn't lend itself to him being able to recover from the damage, even if I couldn't just kill him directly without leaving the Asgard deprived of a solution for the Replicator problem in this reality.


	43. The Alternates' Exes

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: I decided to skip over the scene where Sam witnessed the news report about the F-302 bombings in Ireland, but I hope you like what I decided to include instead... or rather, _WHO _I decided to include instead...

AN 2: We open this chapter from the perspective of someone we've briefly seen before, but have patience as far as the lack of identification goes; I'll reveal their identity before this chapter's over

The Ghost in the Team

Crouching outside the large office building, she couldn't believe that her target had done this; even if Spike had somehow found some way around the sunlight issue- seeing him in sunlight had brought back some unpleasant memories, even if she knew that there was no way he could do _that _again-, how the _hell _had he managed to acquire the kind of clearance necessary to accompany America's single greatest hero anywhere?

She wasn't sure what was more shocking right now, really; the fact that Spike was alive and in this kind of position of power, or the fact that nobody she'd spoken to seemed to be willing or able to tell her where he'd come from. For a moment she thought about her old contacts, but quickly rejected that as an option; anyone who might be able to tell her anything useful from that time of her life had pretty much disdained contact with her after she'd taken her new path.

It wasn't like she _needed _them most of the time, anyway- if they'd had trouble with what she'd chosen to do with her life, that was their own fault for not recognising what had to be done in this new world-, but there were a few moments...

Shaking that thought off, she turned her attention back to the matter at hand, her eye narrowing grimly as she stared at the building in front of her.

She'd let Spike and his 'squeeze'- a part of her didn't like to think of anyone that important to the rest of the world succumbing to Spike's 'charms', but she knew that anything was possible in the mess they lived in now- finish their meeting, let them lower their guard as they left, and then...

She clenched her hand with a resolute grin.

Once he was outside, Spike was going to learn what a _serious _mistake he'd made in coming back from wherever he'd been after she'd last dealt with him...

* * *

As she stood impatiently in the office of McKay's counterpart in this world- an excessively elaborate and modern bit of architecture with a window for one wall that looked out over a larger office area and various architectural sketches on the other three walls, along with statues that Sam thought might be modern art even if her time with Daniel had left her more inclined towards more classic examples when examining statues or paintings-, Sam couldn't believe that this was what she'd come to; having to contact Doctor Rodney McKay for assistance because she couldn't count on anyone else from the world that she was currently trapped in (She might trust Spike, but he couldn't actually contribute anything that would solve this problem, even if his presence behind her as he idly studied the various sketches on the walls leant her a strangely reassuring strength).

However, regardless of how difficult it might be to get back, she had to take action if she was going to get anywhere; the news report that she'd witnessed earlier about F-302 bombings in Ireland had only reinforced how different this world was compared to the situation back home. The people at the SGC might have started out with the same intentions as her world, but everything she'd seen so far made it obvious that they'd lost their way; even General Hammond and President Landry, two men that she'd been convinced could be counted on to do the right thing regardless of the personal cost, seemed more concerned with maintaining their power and image rather than actually doing anything positive to bring Earth back to what it had been before their paths diverged from each other

She might be just about able to accept Hammond's story that the village in Ireland had been bombed because it was the location of a terrorist group- F-302s were an excessive response, but a part of her wanted to convince the rest that the terrorists might have acquired alien technology, but that didn't change the fact that the SGC had pulled back on all offworld resources to focus exclusively on their commitments to Earth, particularly when their only defence was that there were still threats out there.

Didn't they understand that if they didn't take action to stop the Ori expanding into the rest of the galaxy now, they'd inevitably find themselves under siege? She could almost have suspected that Kinsey had played a part in the development of this new policy, but apparently the former Vice-President had been arrested and sent to prison as a scapegoat for delaying the SGC's response to the threat posed by Anubis; Sam wasn't sure if his lack of involvement made it more or less depressing.

Still, as much as what she kept learning about this world disturbed her, she wasn't going to give into the potential trap of thinking that she could make this world better. Right now, her first priority was to get Spike and herself back to her world; the only thing that she was in this reality was a symbol rather than a soldier against the Ori, to say nothing of her continued existence in this world preventing anyone from actually mourning for her counterpart.

As strange and warped as it might sound, she wanted people to _know _that her other self was dead; her hanging around and staying alive wasn't going to help anyone who'd known the other her get over the fact that the Samantha Carter they'd known wasn't coming back, and her trying to fit into her other self's role long-term just wasn't practical on any level.

"Well, well, well," a familiar voice said, prompting Sam to turn around as McKay's counterpart walked into the room, wearing small glasses and dressed in a smarter shirt than anything Sam had ever seen 'her' McKay wear, "if it isn't the toast of Washington... and her ever-present shadow."

"I do my job," Spike said, his gaze neutral under his glasses as he glared at the other man.

"Hi, Rodney," Sam said, smiling politely at him in the hope that she could draw attention away from Spike; the last thing they wanted was someone paying too much attention to Spike. "Thank you for seeing me."

"Well, why wouldn't I?" McKay said, his hands behind his back as he smiled at her in the self-satisfied manner that Sam had almost forgotten 'her' McKay had possessed (It was funny how you forgot what people used to be like on the first meeting after a while). "I mean, we're still friends, aren't we? Saw you on TV… well, recorded you, actually…not that I-I watched it more than once… I mean, I recorded it in order to… watch you once…"

Looking at him wince as he babbled awkwardly, Sam wondered if this would be more or less awkward if she'd been the Sam he thought she was; considering that she still wasn't entirely clear why they'd divorced in this reality- nobody who knew the truth about her 'transference' had known those kind of details and she wasn't keen to ask any more people about it than she had to in case they started asking the wrong questions-, but quickly resolved to ignore that thought; it wasn't going to help her.

"How can I help you?" McKay asked, clearly trying to collect back some of his nearly lost dignity.

"Well, this is going to come as a bit of a shock, but... I'm not who you think I am," Sam said; hopefully McKay would appreciate the direct approach that he often delivered to others.

"Oh my God, you're a lesbian!" McKay said, his eyes widening behind his glasses. "Is that what you're trying to tell me?

"What?" Sam said, looking incredulously at him; how McKay could jump to an assumption like that she had no idea (A part of her wondered if it could be possible, but pushed it aside; even if other versions of her might have 'experimented', she was confident that this timeline hadn't diverged from hers at a point where her other self would have tried something like that).

"I mean, I've got nothing against the lifestyle- I've got this one new programmer; brilliant with computers but lives with this very 'New Age' woman-, but-" McKay continued, looking at her in what was probably meant to be a reassuring manner.

"I'm _not _a lesbian, McKay!" Sam said, glaring at the Canadian; she briefly registered Spike move slightly towards McKay as he spoke, a somewhat startled expression on his face, but he stepped back without saying anything.

"Well, no," McKay said, his hand waving awkwardly around as he tried to come up with a better way of saying what he was trying to say. "I-I-just… I think... I thought, uh… hmm..."

"_Don't _stoop to the 'worst' scenario, you prick," Spike said, glaring firmly at the Canadian scientist as he raised a warning finger. "If you do, I _will _hurt you."

"Hold on; are you with-?" McKay began to say again, only to halt when Spike removed his glasses and glared at the other man, the sheer intensity of his stare forcing even McKay into silence.

"Spike is... a friend," Sam said, looking at McKay with a resolute expression that made it clear that she wouldn't accept further discussion about that topic. "What we are trying to tell you right now is... well, he and I are from an alternate universe."

"Huh?" McKay said, his tone and expression both relatively non-committal, as though he was waiting to see what else she had to say before he said anything else.

"Your Samantha Carter was working on an experiment when she inadvertently pulled me in," Sam clarified.

"This some kind of a joke?" McKay said, smiling slightly as he walked around to the other side of his desk. "It's very funny. Who put you up to this?"

"This is not a joke, McKay," Sam said, staring firmly at him as he stood casually on the other side of the glass desk in the room. "In my reality, you're a key member of a team of international scientists and explorers based in the Pegasus Galaxy. You go on dangerous adventures. You deal with high level alien technology."

"Hmm. Sounds like, um, I'm a chump," McKay said, smirking slightly at what he'd just heard.

"I'll show you who's a sodding chump, you arrogant _git_..." Spike muttered under his breath, his fists clenching as he glared at McKay.

"Nice try, Sam," McKay said- either he hadn't noticed the sudden tension around Spike's appearance or he had dismissed it as irrelevant-, "but, uh, even if travel between universes _was_ possible, the likelihood of you two surviving is, uh..."

"Spike and I were in a force shield when we were pulled through," Sam said, giving McKay a moment to process that new information before she continued speaking. "Your Samantha Carter was killed in the same accident that brought us here. I'm sorry to be so blunt about it, but I don't have a lot of time, and I need your help."

The bleak expression on McKay's face when he realised that she was telling the truth at least reassured them that they'd made the right impact, but that still left her facing the evidence of what she'd already told herself for the first time; her other self was never going to find the peace she needed if she was hanging around pretending to be her counterpart, depriving everyone who'd known her of the chance to accept her death.

If only to give her other self the peace she deserved, she _had _to get home...

* * *

"Okay, you need to slow down," McKay said; he'd been listening to Sam explaining her story for the last few minutes while Spike stood slightly off to the side- he was dividing his attention between the door, the windows and Sam to ensure that he was aware of anything that might threaten them while McKay paced around the room-, but clearly he wanted clarification from his own assessment rather than relying exclusively on their side. "You're telling me my ex-wife is dead even though you look _exactly_ like her- except for the hair, which is nice, by the way- and on top of that, you and your bodyguard are from another universe, and you need me to help you get back?"

As much as he found the guy annoying as a person, Spike had to admit that McKay didn't seem to be that bad as a scientist; he might be confused at the implications of what they were telling him, but at least he wasn't dismissing the whole concept as impossible.

"In our reality," Sam clarified, "you successfully designed and built a bridge between parallel universes…with a little help from your sister."

"He did?" Spike asked, looking over at Sam in surprise.

"Shortly before you joined us, actually," Sam clarified, looking over at Spike by way of explanation.

"I did?" McKay said, looking curiously at Sam after hearing this new information. "What, so, uh, she and I get along in your universe?"

"Not exactly," Sam said.

"Oh," McKay said, his expression becoming slightly more depressed at that news.

"Anyway," Sam continued, turning the conversation back to the original topic, "I've been trying my best to recreate your calculations, but I keep coming up short. That's why I'm here."

"I have not done a lot of theoretical physics, lately, okay?" McKay said, holding up a hand in protest. "I mean, these days I tend to do a little more of the, uh, buying and selling of companies!"

"The Rodney McKay I know wouldn't back down from a challenge," Sam said, staring firmly at the other man. "He is one of the most forthright, courageous, and... selfless men I have ever met."

"Mmm?" McKay said, smiling slightly at that description of himself before he looked directly at Sam and the grin faltered. "Aw, you're making that up, aren't you?"

"Most of it, yeah," Sam admitted.

"OK, I'll help you," McKay said, rolling his eyes as he walked back around to sit behind his desk. "Just send me your calculations, and... I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you," Sam said, smiling warmly at him. "I'll just go and get them; I didn't want to bring anything now in case you decided against it..."

"Besides," Spike added- anything to add to his 'professional reputation', after all-, moving in closer to Sam just to make sure, "these government types get jittery if we're away for too long; know what I mean?"

"Yeah, sure; I... uh, see you soon?" McKay said, looking slightly awkwardly yet hopefully at the two of them as they turned and left the office, heading for the elevator that would take them back to the ground floor.

"Well," Spike said, looking over at Sam with a slight smile as the doors closed behind them and the elevator began to descend, "that went well, right?"

"Considering how things could have gone, it went better than I might have expected," Sam said, shrugging slightly as she looked over at Spike. "The first time I met McKay, he had several flawed theories about the Stargate that he was convinced were correct despite the fact that he'd never even _seen _the Stargate before we met; he kept on trying to tell everyone who'd listen that what we were trying to do would just destroy the Stargate and there wasn't any point to what we were doing anyway..."

"What were you trying to do?" Spike asked, looking curiously at her.

"Basically, we were trying to get Teal'c out of the Stargate's memory storage system," Sam explained, smiling slightly when Spike looked at her in confusion at her description. "We'd been under attack by a Goa'uld with a personal history with Teal'c- he'd killed a Jaffa priestess that Teal'c was in love with-, and Teal'c shot at his ship with a staff cannon we'd acquired before he retreated back through the Stargate. Unfortunately, something disrupted the Stargate at the other end- we think that the ship crashed into the other Stargate when it was destroyed- with the result that the wormhole disconnected before Teal'c came through the other end, leaving him basically stuck in the Stargate's memory. We had to move the iris on our Stargate back a few micrometres so that the gate would register as being 'buried' to prevent Teal'c's data being lost when a new wormhole was formed, but McKay's government contacts accepted his assessment that Teal'c's pattern had already started to degrade and would be past the point of recovery after two days."

"I'm guessing that was wrong?" Spike asked, smiling slightly as the doors opened and they walked out of the building.

"Yes, it was," Sam replied, smiling back at him as they walked out of the building. "Not only did we rescue Teal'c, but we managed to capture a rogue colonel who'd acquired a Goa'uld a few months back and was trying to pump it for information; he genuinely seemed to think that we wouldn't realise where he got his information from-"

Further conversation was cut short when Spike felt something suddenly violently enter his right arm- he was suddenly glad he wasn't wearing his usual coat; the bodyguard suit might be nice, but at least he could get a new version of it if the situation required him to-, followed by whatever-it-was yanking him across the thankfully-quiet street into an alley on the opposite side of the road, where he found himself pinned to the ground and staring in horror at the figure who'd attacked him.

Her hair was cut in a severe manner that he'd never seen on her counterpart back in his world, she was dressed in a dark top and trousers that were far more severe than anything she'd worn back in Spike's world, and the cybernetic implant where her left eye had been would have been a shock even without the gleaming silver fist at the end of her left arm, but Spike would have recognised her under any circumstances.

"_Buffy_?" he said, his eyes widening in shock as he shook his glasses off, staring at this world's version of the woman he loved incredulously.

He'd read about the injuries she'd sustained fighting Glory in this reality, but that still didn't prepare him for the shock of actually seeing what she'd become here; the idea that she'd accept bloody artificial limbs, after all the crap she'd gone through with Adam (If he'd understood all that stuff about alternate worlds that Sam had told him, Buffy's life here probably matched what he knew before Anubis attacked), was just something he _really _hadn't expected...

"Bingo," Buffy said, her voice a cold, brutal tone that he'd never heard from her even on her worst day. "Now then, _Spike_-"

"_Stop_!" a voice said from off to the side; Spike wasn't sure if he should feel relieved or disturbed at the sight of Sam pointing a gun at Buffy that she must have been keeping in her bag or something (He was _not _going to be insulted at the thought of Sam packing some extra security; they were in a very complicated situation here and it was only natural, it was _not _a dig at his skills).

"You're trying to _protect _this thing?" Buffy said, looking at Sam as though the scientist was mentally handicapped. "Lady, you have _no _idea what this piece of _shit_-"

"I know who and what he is, neither of which you can know if you're doing _this _to him," Sam countered, glaring back at Buffy. "Whatever happened to the Spike you know, Spike _isn't _the same person-"

"He'll _always _be the same fucking person, Colonel Part-Brain," Buffy spat, staring in contempt at Sam before turning her attention back to Spike. "I don't know how you came back-"

"Came _back_?" Spike interjected, staring at Buffy in shock at this news. "I'm _dead _here?"


	44. The Slayer's Loss

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: In gratitude for your patience in waiting so long for an update for this story, I give you the second chapter right away, as we see just what happened to Buffy to turn her into the cyborg we saw last time…

AN 2: The majority of this chapter was written by the highly talented Elgin when he had the time to spare- his fight scenes are always of high quality, and considering the scale of what happened here I thought that this scene deserved the best-, but the central idea is mine, and I've added my own touches to the flashback fight; hope you all like it.

The Ghost in the Team

Looking back on that moment, Buffy would never be entirely sure why she decided to listen to her old enemy in that moment when she'd been so focused on staking him. Maybe it was the honest confusion and shock she saw in his face at the idea that she thought he was dead, maybe it was Colonel Carter's comment about 'the Spike you know' and Spike's comment about how he was dead 'here' reminding her of her old confrontation with the vampire version of Willow, maybe it was the strange essence of genuine emotion she'd seen in Spike's eyes as he'd looked at her, an expression that she'd only ever seen in Angel's eyes and found disturbingly lacking in any other vampire she had ever fought in her life...

"What do you mean, you're dead 'here'?" she said at last, sitting back slightly even as she took care to keep her weight on Spike's legs; if he was trying to catch her off-guard, he couldn't do much with his legs pinned down, and she _knew _she had the advantage in upper-body strength...

"Well... look, Spike told me about an encounter you had with a version of your friend Willow who was a vampire; that did happen to you, right?" Colonel Carter asked, apparently taking up the explanation for Spike (Buffy _really _wanted to know what Spike had done in any reality to convince anyone to trust him with bodyguard detail for a national hero; this whole thing was just _stupid_ at best).

"You _know _about that?" Buffy said, uncertain how she should react to that news even as she definitely felt outraged; that experience had been so difficult- for a few hours, she'd been convinced that she would have to stake her best friend- and now Spike was _sharing it_-

"How the _Hell _do you know about that?" she asked, looking incredulously at Spike as she focused on the problem of him possessing that knowledge. "You weren't even _in _Sunnydale when that happened!"

"You told me 'bout it a year or so ago," Spike replied, smiling up at her in a manner that could almost be described as hopeful.

"You were _dead _by then-!" Buffy began.

"In _this _world, he was," Colonel Carter interjected, looking at Buffy with a slightly apologetic expression. "I know it's an unusual concept, but this isn't the Spike you... knew; Spike and I come from an alternate universe to this one, where our history diverged from yours around the time that Anubis invaded."

"Uh... alternate universe?" Buffy said, shaking her head slightly in confusion. "That... that means... if your world... are you saying that something different happened to _you_?"

"Well, they fought off that Anubis bloke without the Stargate stuff going public and you don't have that stupid metal eye thing; I'd call that different, wouldn't you?" Spike said, only to be met with a rapid punch to his face as Buffy glared at him.

"_This_," she said, indicating the metal where her eye had been, "is no joke."

It might have been three years since she'd lost her eye, arm, and a sizeable portion of her side, but that was the kind of thing you didn't forget...

* * *

_Spread out before her as she crouched on the roof of the Doublemeat Palace, Buffy could only watch as a beautiful, seemingly peaceful Sunnydale night was ruined by a vista of destruction the likes of which even this town had never seen before. _

_Tracer rounds and energy blasts flickered through the night. Heavily armed men in black camouflage fatigues ran this way and that, variously firing, advancing, falling back, taking up or abandoning firing positions, radioing in situation reports or calls for reinforcements._

_From one side of Reinkemeyer Street, a fire team of four Initiative commandos armed with DEWS carbines bombarded their enemy with blue-silver crackling lightning bolt-like energy blasts; from across the road, a quartet of NID commandos blazed away with what she'd learned were known as 'zat guns', sheltering behind an overturned Humvee. Another Initiative team of four commandos armed with flamethrowers circled around their compatriots' position, took aim and opened up, great gouts of liquid fire washing over the lone enemy, even as she continued coming._

"_I am a GOD, you witless maggots!" the being Buffy had learned was called Glorificus screeched. Launching herself into a flying leap, she landed among the NID commando team and ripped the team leader in half at the waist. She then seized another commando and threw him against the nearest brick wall, which partially collapsed under the force of the impact, leaving the battered corpse to bounce randomly and fall to the ground. _

"_Do you moronic monkeys even begin to comprehend what that MEANS?" she continued to rant, as she backhanded the last two commandos, sending them flying backwards in broken and bloody tangles of limbs. "I am GLORIFICUS! And I want my damned KEY!"_

_Even five blocks away from the fight, Buffy continued to watch the battle, her body automatically itching to participate, her fingers restlessly clenching into fists and unclenching, over and over again, out of a lack of anything else to do. _

_Standing next to Buffy, surveying the battlefield through a pair of binoculars, was a grey-haired man with a bedraggled moustache, wearing a set of rumpled green-black-brown woodland-pattern camouflage fatigues, only identifiable as a major general in the army by the silver stars on his shoulders. The name __**'Phillips'**__ was displayed over his jacket's breast pocket; his weathered skin and receding hairline betrayed the trials and tribulations of his fifty-nine years, and his fingers bore the nicotine stains of a lifetime smoker._

"_Charlie and Echo callsigns, engage immediately!" Phillips snapped out, in a clear voice that was obviously used to being obeyed. "Delta and Foxtrot callsigns are to advance to flanking positions and prepare to enfilade the HST. Golf and India callsigns, stand by to provide fire support on my order. Hotel and Juliet callsigns are to advance to Reserve Position Five-Three and await further instructions. All sniper teams are cleared to engage."_

"_This won't kill Glory, y'know," Buffy grimly told the general, not looking away from the raging battle as the soldiers standing behind them relayed the orders to the relevant units via the bulky radio sets on their backs._

_Phillips was silent for several seconds, watching as a trio of anti-tank rockets struck Glory in rapid succession, the detonations hurling her into the air, before he spoke again. "I guessed as much… but this oughta at least tenderise her a ways."_

_Lying sprawled on her back, Glory screamed with rage before she picked herself up off the tarmac. Her dress was reduced to shredded scraps of cloth and her near-naked body was scorched and blistered, a few pieces of metal shrapnel protruding from her chest and belly._

"_That HURT, you vermin!" she shrieked. "How DARE you stand up to one of your betters like that!" _

_With that said, she charged the nearest Initiative team; a second later, she began hurling bodies- some still alive, some mercifully already dead- every which way in a fit of pique._

"_Phillips, you need to pull your guys outta there!" Buffy insisted; she'd gone along with this plan in the hope that it might make some impact, but so far all that it was accomplishing was getting people killed against a foe they couldn't hope to match. "I'll take it from here…"_

_An Initiative fire team armed with automatic shotguns opened fire, hitting Glory with a near-solid wall of blazing hot metal shrapnel; an NID team armed with bulky drum-fed M32 grenade launchers joined them, peppering the insane hell goddess with a fusillade of high explosive charges. Another NID team carrying Goa'uld staff weapons ducked and ran from one piece of cover to another, until they were close enough to Glory to engage her, glowing golden plasma blasts striking her head and chest, making her howl in enraged agony and driving her into an even-greater frenzy._

"_Remind me again how well that worked out the last three times you tangled with her?" Phillips asked rhetorically, his voice calm and gentle as he glanced at the Slayer._

_Buffy grimaced, but said nothing; maybe it was some hero complex she'd developed over the years, but she just hated the idea of other people dying in a fight when she was just as capable of participating as they were…_

_The insect-like bulky shape of an Apache gunship swept past low overhead, rotors clattering. Tracer rounds streamed from the chaingun mounted under the helicopter's nose and tore into Glory; the hell goddess's screams had a real and agonised urgency to them now. An anti-tank missile that was a couple of feet longer than Buffy was tall leapt free from a weapons pylon under the Apache's starboard wing on a stream of exhaust fumes and struck the goddess in the face._

"_Stick to the plan, Miss Summers," Phillips said, shaking his head in a pointed manner. "We'll wear her down, then you finish her off. She's not ready for you yet; my guys still have work to do."_

_Clambering to her feet and seizing a nearby abandoned car, Glory hurled it up at the gunship. The saloon hurtled high into the air, then dropped down into the sweeping arc of the helicopter's rotor blades which chopped it apart, pieces of shrapnel penetrating the cockpit and crew, spraying the canopy's shattered remnants an arterial red. Nose dropping, the Apache drunkenly lurched to the left, colliding with an office building before it plummeted to the street below and exploded._

"_Your guys are getting killed in there!" Buffy protested._

"_You think they didn't guess it would go down this way?" Phillips asked, glaring over at her. "This isn't our first rodeo, Summers; this is a war, and just like any other war, we knew that we'd pay a price like this."_

_Glory abruptly stumbled, reeling to the right as something powerful slammed into the side of her head. Steadying herself, she staggered over to the burning wreck of the gunship, snatched up a piece of armour plating, then threw it like a javelin back at where the shot had come from._

"_Sir?" one of the signallers spoke up, voice trembling slightly. "Uh, one of our sniper teams just went off the air…"_

"_How many more men are you prepared to lose tonight, Phillips?" Buffy asked, glaring over at the general. Not waiting for an answer, Buffy took a step forward and dropped off the edge of the roof; landing in a roll, she smoothly came up onto her feet and took off running, racing toward the sounds of screams and gunfire, hurdling a burning Humvee as she focused on her target. A black-clad corpse flew past her at head height, followed by another that rolled and bounced and skidded its way along the asphalt. Dodging, Buffy then leapt into the air._

"…_You're just a mortal," Glory was chiding the feebly-struggling commando she was holding one-handed by the throat; in a seemingly delicate motion, she squeezed, snapping his neck as cleanly as a professional hangman, then cast the body aside. "You couldn't understand my pain."_

_Further ranting was cut off as Buffy leapt through the air once more and hit her opponent feet first, striking the hell goddess in the face with a powerful force. _

"_Then I'll just have to settle for causing it," Buffy said grimly as she hit the ground and shifted into a combat stance as she got back to her feet, leaving Glory groaning in agony from where she'd fallen to the ground._

"_Ugh… and of course the Slayer turns up," Glory sighed as she struggled to stand up again, clutching at her evidently aching face as she looked Buffy over with a scathing sigh. "God, don't you have any taste at all? Your wardrobe is an abomination against nature."_

_Buffy lashed out, kicking Glory in the gut to leave her gasping for oxygen once again as she returned Glory's earlier scathing look. "At least I dress appropriate for the occasion; jeans and a jacket that I don't mind too much getting blood and guts all over if it comes down to that." The Slayer followed up with a roundhouse punch that snapped Glory's head around to one side and knocked her down again; Glory coughed and retched, and blood and a couple of teeth flew from her mouth. "Whereas your line of hooker-wear… Oh… dear… me."_

_Glory's hands flew to her mouth, fingers probing the newly-bleeding gums. _

"_You… you can't DO that!" she shrieked in horror._

"_Don't care," Buffy grinned, cocking her head to one side. "Just did."_

"_But I'm a god! And you're just a puny little Slayer!" Glory howled, kicking out at Buffy's legs and dropping her flat on her back on the tarmac. "This is so totally not fair! You're cheating!"_

_Buffy log-rolled away from Glory even as the goddess swung a fist in an over-arm strike at her head; Glory screamed in pain and irritation as she ended up punching a crater into the asphalt instead. _

"_Nope," Buffy riposted, as she and the hell goddess leapt upright again, the Slayer falling into a ready stance before swinging a punch at Glory's head with her left fist. "I'd say I'm winning."_

"_Oh, yeah?" Glory snarled. "Win this!" Ducking and seizing Buffy's outstretched arm, Glory flexed her fingers and squeezed with all her might. The goddess's face contorted into an ugly rictus, a delighted gleeful grin, as she snapped the bones in the Slayer's upper arm and sadistically ground them together, eliciting an agonised shriek from the Slayer. Glory's grin grew still wider, and she slapped her left hand against Buffy's chest to give the Slayer an inhumanly powerful shove away from her, sending Buffy flying off her feet until she collided with a wall some thirty yards away, then dropped to the ground._

_Groggily shaking her head and looking up, Buffy saw that Glory, now running toward where she'd fallen, still clutched something in her right hand._

_Something long and thin._

_Something with a hand at one end, the fingers still weakly twitching at random._

_The hell goddess hadn't relinquished her grip on Buffy's left arm._

_Blazing hot adrenaline and a potent cocktail of hormones exploded in Buffy's brain as she looked down and saw the great river of blood gushing like a geyser from her shoulder. Liquid fire ran through her veins, and she held her breath to keep herself from exploding. She felt stronger with each passing moment, bursting with energy she desperately needed to burn off. Awkwardly, a little unbalanced, she clambered to her feet before charging straight at Glory._

_Buffy balled up her remaining hand into a fist, drew it back, and then swung it at Glory's face with all her might._

_Buffy felt as if she were moving in slow-motion, a howling battle cry- red and raw and primal- ripping forth from her throat. She felt invincible, riding a wave of courage and desperation and insanity._

_Glory's cackling laughter, deranged and disturbing, rang in Buffy's ears even as the deranged hell goddess raised the Slayer's severed arm. Gripping it by the wrist with both hands as if it were a Louisville Slugger, Glory brought the arm swinging towards the left side of the Slayer's head even as she continued to charge towards the goddess._

_Buffy's fist collided with Glory's nose, raw power and momentum driving it still directly onwards; in the exact same instant, pain exploded through Buffy's face as what had been her arm struck her, the tissue surrounding her left eye immediately beginning to swell as blood spilled from broken capillaries. The orbital socket was shattered beyond all hope of repair, the eyeball ruptured, the cornea dislodged._

_Blinking and exerting all her might to withdraw her fist despite the powerful suction that resisted, Buffy saw Glory staggering back; the goddess's face had caved in completely from the force of the blow, the top of her skull sagging to partially cover the newly-made gaping cavity that ran nearly all the way through her head. The knuckles of the Slayer's right hand were split and coated with blood and brains, shards and splinters of bone protruded from the flesh of Buffy's battered fist…_

…_and then the goddess toppled backwards to the tarmac. Blood and gristle spilled across the blacktop from her shattered skull, bone fragments whirling along in their wake. Her left foot- bare and burned- twitched twice, and then was still._

_Buffy could hear nothing except the deafening sounds of her own breathing and the hammering of her heart. Initiative and NID commandos lumbered toward the victorious Slayer and her fallen foe, each stride and gesture seeming to take an eternity to complete._

_Mad exuberance gripped Buffy, a wild sense of danger and excitement. The very last trace of her fear was swept away on a sea of adrenaline and hormones and red raw power surging and fizzing through her bloodstream, and she threw her head back and laughed with the sheer vitality she possessed. The stars above had never seemed quite so dazzlingly silver, nor her eyes so preternaturally sharp; looking down again, she could make out every last pore and follicle on Glory's ruined head in graphic detail. She stood over the dead hell goddess, blood still geysering from her left shoulder, her left eyeball all but destroyed, the left-hand side of her chest partially caved in, and howled her triumph to the world._

_Suddenly, like a towel falling from Buffy's eyes, the adrenaline wore off. What felt like all the pain in the world instantly flooded into her body._

_The Slayer didn't even scream; she just collapsed…_

* * *

"Where did you get crap like that, anyway?" Spike asked, his voice drawing Buffy back to the present as he looked at the limb uncertainly. "I mean, it looks a bit like the kind of crap I'd expect to see from Adam-"

"Probably because the same people were responsible in both cases," Buffy said, looking at the limb that she'd grown used to over the years; her sense of touch was limited compared to what it had been, but the new arm could deliver a punch at least as well as the old one, and some of her new eye's functions weren't to be sneezed at even for someone with vamp-like night-vision.

"Hold on; the _Initiative _gave you that thing?" Spike yelled, looking at the arm incredulously. "After all the crap-!"

"In a world like this, we _need _some of this crap," Buffy said, glaring firmly at the vampire, moving her metal arm so that it was in front of Spike's face, the fist clenching to emphasise her point. "That's why I staked you."

"_You _staked him?" Sam said, looking at Buffy in surprise; she'd been so lost in her memories she'd almost forgotten that the older woman was there. "But... according to the timeline in our world, didn't he have that chip in his head when our worlds diverged? You'd decided back where we come from that you wouldn't kill him because-"

"And those reasons applied when I knew the rules of this crap," Buffy said, staring firmly at Sam; the woman might have saved the world, but that wouldn't let her off for being stupid enough to trust Spike of all people. "But then aliens start showing up posing as gods, and the rules of the game changed; I might have been able to tolerate you pulling that crap with Adam because it worked out in the end, but that wasn't enough any more."

"Hold on; you're not going to-!" Spike began.

"Why shouldn't I?" Buffy asked, raising her remaining exposed eyebrow; clearly Spike had realised what she was here to do. "You're the same person-"

"He has a soul," Colonel Carter said.

Buffy blinked.

"What?" she said, looking over at Colonel Carter incredulously, trying to push aside the memories of the only vampire she would always spare, the vampire who'd vanished after Anubis came and never been heard from since…

"_Spike _has a soul?" she repeated; she couldn't believe that she'd heard that properly. "_SPIKE_?"

"Long story..." Spike said, shrugging slightly as he looked at her, a slight smile on his face despite still being pinned to the ground.

"What matters is the simple fact that you _can't _kill Spike, Miss Summers," Colonel Carter said, her gun now out of its holster and actually aimed at Buffy's face. "I don't know who you're working with now- those parts aren't exactly something you just can just wander off after receiving-, but what you've said suggests that you came here on your own, and I won't let you kill my teammate; no matter what his counterpart did in this world, he's proven himself back in our reality more than once, and he does _not _deserve to be staked because of something he technically hasn't done."

For a moment, Buffy simply glared back at the older woman facing her, a gun still pointing at her head as she kept Spike immobilised on the ground with her flesh arm, until she finally released him and stood up.

"_Fine_," she said, staring resolutely at Spike as he got back to his feet. "But just make this clear; I don't know _how _you're doing the sunlight thing, and I don't particularly care so long as it's restricted to you-"

"Which it is-" Spike began before Buffy held up her hand and glared at him.

"Again, I don't care about that," she said, still glaring firmly at him. "All I care about is confirmation that you are not going to kill, maim, feed from, torture, or otherwise do anything that would cause harm to any innocent people- and that _includes _giving vampires useful information, by the way-, or I will come back and stake your ass. Clear?"

"As a bell," Spike confirmed, smiling slightly awkwardly at her.

"Good," Buffy said.

With that, she raised her arm and launched the small grappling hook that was one of the many built-in tools she'd requested be added to the arm when it was first built- if she was going to get a new arm, it was going to be a better one than its predecessor-, latching on to an upper ledge and flying upwards out of sight, leaving Colonel Carter and Spike looking up after her as she vanished over the roof.

She still wasn't entirely sure if she accepted the story she'd just heard, but it seemed to fit the facts, and she already knew that she wasn't going to have any luck going after Colonel Carter's bodyguard while Colonel Carter was the current 'flavour of the month'.

But once that changed...

A part of her was going to enjoy the chance to stake Spike again.


	45. Lights in the Darkness

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Another quick jump forward for this chapter, as we go straight to Sam and Spike's meeting with alt-Mitchell, which includes another significant alternate to someone we've seen before...

The Ghost in the Team

As she and Spike looked at the sullen figure of the man that this world's Cameron Mitchell had become, in a dimly-lit apartment with furniture that would have been barely acceptable to a student and certainly not what one would expect a former air force major to possess, in a neighbourhood that had seen better days even before the government had started clamping down on personal freedoms- why in the world was nobody allowed to _park _in this area?-, Sam felt the crushing weight of her sheer inadequacy to make any genuine difference in the face of what this world had become.

She wanted to believe that the people she had met here still had the potential to be the people she knew back in her world- the General Hammond who never compromised when faced with moral dilemmas, the Rodney McKay who would risk his life for others even if he'd complain about having to take those risks, the Hank Landry who recognised that his staff needed freedom and the ability to defy orders if they were going to get their jobs done rather than just doing whatever he told them to do-, but the more she experienced of this world, the more she recognised the near-impossibility of that assumption.

The government's decision to acquire their world's version of Merlin's device made sense, and she wouldn't deny them access to her equations and notes about how the device worked- even if she didn't feel entirely comfortable in this world, she was hardly going to leave innocent people defenceless-, but when they took _her _version of the device away so that they could be sure she'd remain in their world because of the 'political value' offered by her role as Earth's saviour to convince the general population to accept the subversion of democracy and maintain Landry's current near-dictator status, to say nothing of their implied threat to blackmail McKay by making him the target of an anti-Trust investigation just so that they could be sure he wouldn't help her get home...

Sam was just grateful that so far nobody seemed to know about Spike's true nature yet; she didn't know why Buffy wouldn't have told anyone about it given her obviously negative opinion of this world's Spike- her best guess was that she had enough political collateral at the moment to make Buffy unwilling to threaten her personal bodyguard without direct evidence that Spike had done something wrong-, but she wasn't exactly going to try to find out the answers to that question and draw more attention to her friend than she already had. They might have some trouble coping with the politics of this new world, but at least with Spike's reputation as her 'private bodyguard' already established, nobody was going to try and separate them so long as they at least appeared to be 'towing the line'...

"How d'ya take it?" Mitchell asked- it was easier to think of this version of Mitchell as an alternative from the man they knew; Landry and Hammond still looked like they could be the ones she knew, but this man was clearly not his counterpart, sitting in a wheelchair with unkempt hair and a defeated slouch, along with distinctly grungy clothes-, looking grimly at the two visitors as though it was an effort just to appear interested.

"Uh, just black," Sam said, trying to relax in the dilapidated apartment even as she kept her coat on, maintaining a subtle 'barrier' between her and their current environment that she couldn't quite shake; the thought of Mitchell being reduced to this...

"Don't drink coffee myself," Spike said, nodding awkwardly at the other man; Sam had experience with meeting other versions of herself and her teammates, but this was still a new experience for Spike, watching alt-Mitchell pouring the drinks and wheeling the cups over to her, the contrast between him and his other self so blatant…

"Thanks," Sam said, taking the offered drink, the warmth giving her something else to focus on in a chaotic world.

"Welcome," Mitchell said briefly, his voice more gravelly than the Mitchell they knew as he wheeled around his apartment; for a moment, his hand hovered over a whiskey bottle on a nearby shelf above the small television, but he seemed to decide against it as he turned back to look at them without picking it up, his own cup of coffee on a tray at the front of his wheelchair. "I was an F-302 pilot. Got shot down over Antarctica."

"Yeah, I know," Sam said, uncomfortably biting her lip. "I'm sorry."

"Well, a little late in the day for that, isn't it?" Mitchell said, sipping at his coffee as he looked at her. "I mean, I already gave my legs for the freedoms we now enjoy. It's a helluva deal, ain't it?"

Neither Sam or Spike had any idea what the appropriate reaction to a statement like that should be, and didn't bother trying to reply to it.

"Of course, I recognise you," Mitchell continued, looking at Sam with an overly grim tone. "Your picture's been in the paper a lot lately. Is that why you're here?"

"Why we're here is... complicated," Sam said at last, looking over at Spike for a moment before she looked back at Mitchell. "We just... well, I know what you did in the Antarctica battle, and... if I didn't say it before... I'm sorry."

"Well, them's the breaks, isn't it?" Mitchell said, shrugging slightly. "You want to see something funny?"

Reaching behind him, Mitchell picked up a framed picture from a nearby shelf- the picture in question had been lying on top of a small pile of books, so that from the side it could have just been another book-, and rolled over to the two visitors. Taking it from him, Sam held it so that Spike could see it, and the two of them saw Mitchell, wearing dress blues and supported by crutches, standing alongside President Landry behind the Presidential podium.

"That's me," Mitchell said. "That's when I was you. Hero of the moment, poster child for the administration..."

"You were walking?" Spike asked, looking at Mitchell's photograph in surprise before Sam could stop him.

"Yeah, well... had a little 'setback' in my therapy," Mitchell said, his voice darker than usual at that grim admission, reinforcing Sam and Spike's conclusions that the setback was a deliberate problem. "After Antarctica, they flew me to Washington. Pinned a medal on my chest. Next thing I knew, I was being trotted out to state dinners, political rallies. I think…yeah, I think I even opened a few malls. Mr. President said 'it would be good for morale, son. Help soften the blow for keeping the Stargate secret for so long'..."

"Bollocks," Spike practically spat at Mitchell's words.

He might like the version of Landry he knew in his world well enough, but so far this version of the general had done little to impress Spike that he could be trusted with anything other than maintaining his own position and screwing over or blackmailing people who might threaten that position.

"That was my reaction in the end," Mitchell said, looking reflectively at the vampire before he slumped forward even further in his chair, his expression a dark glare that Sam couldn't ever recall seeing on 'her' Mitchell's face. "I called them on it, and they dropped me... like a rock. No more fancy dinners, no more 'expensive doctors'..."

He seemed to collect himself as he spoke, looking around his apartment with a morbid smile that showed he was simply trying to cope with a crap situation. "Still, these days, walking's overrated. I've found a couple of inexpensive therapists to get through the worse parts of this, what I've got gets the job done, I've still got a friend or two, and I don't have to deal with curfews or military checkpoints or being 'detained'... without charge."

Sam seemed to be about to say something- although she didn't know what would be remotely appropriate to say in this situation- when the door to the apartment opened and young woman walked in, dressed in a loose-sleeved dark top and a long skirt.

"Hi, Cameron," she said as she closed the door behind her, her back to the room as she spoke at first. "I had a gap in my schedule, and given the progress we were making-"

The woman's voice halted as she turned around and took in the two guests in the apartment, her eyes widening as she stared at Spike.

"_You_?" she said incredulously.

"_Glinda_!" Spike said, grinning as he turned to look at the new arrival, only for the grin to falter when the blonde woman pulled out a crucifix and brandished it in front of her. "Oh yeah, I was still a berk when I died here..."

"What?" Mitchell said, looking at the recent developments in confusion. "Uh... Tara?"

"Tara?" Sam said, her eyes widening in understanding as she looked at the woman, memories of what Spike had told her about his old friends flashing through her mind. "You're Tara Maclay?"

"Y-yes..." Tara said, looking back at Sam in confusion. "You... you're Major Samantha Carter?"

"Well... sort of," Sam said, smiling slightly at Spike after exchanging a glance with the vampire; they might have decided to keep the truth secret from everyone else outside of the SGC staff who'd witnessed her and Spike's arrival, but considering the circumstances under which this Tara had probably last seen Spike's counterpart, it wouldn't really accomplish anything for them to try and lie about how Spike was still alive. "Actually... I'm Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter... but I'm _not _the Samantha Carter of this world."

"Huh?" Mitchell said, looking at her in surprise, a suddenly greater interest in his expression than the general listlessness he'd shown so far. "You mean... is it like that 'quantum mirror' thing I've heard about?"

"That thing that let people go to other realities?" Spike said, looking at Mitchell with a slight smile (Good thing he'd spent some time going over the reports now that he'd gotten his body back; even if he had to be careful to stick to what had happened before realities had diverged if what he learned was going to be useful later, there was something undeniably satisfying about being able to turn the pages himself now). "It's sort of like that, but a bit more accidental; long story short, Sam here was experimenting with some stuff back in our world, the Major Carter here was doing something in this world, and the two experiments together crossed a few wires and... well, me and Sam ended up here instead of being left back home."

A quick glance at Sam confirmed that his decision to avoid discussing the other Sam's fate was correct; this situation was going to be difficult enough without them worrying about convincing people that they hadn't done anything to her on purpose, especially given that this Tara's only experience with him was whatever his other self might have done before Buffy staked him here...

"A world where y-_you _were in the Stargate program?" Tara said, looking incredulously at the vampire (Sam supposed she should almost be grateful that the Stargate program was public in this world; at least it looked like Tara was willing to accept the idea that this Spike wasn't the Spike Buffy had killed).

"OK, firstly, in my defence, I'd like to assure you that I went and got a soul since our worlds broke off from each other, so I'm not the guy you knew where it really counts- and don't ask me to get into that story right now, it's _ridiculously _long," Spike said, looking urgently at Glinda; the last thing he wanted was to reveal what he was in front of a Mitchell who clearly already had enough shit to deal with. "Secondly, in _their _defence, I actually just ended up there after someone else sent me to them in the mail- my essence was trapped in this whacky amulet thing that someone sent to them rather than it being anything I'd done or asked them to do myself-, and thirdly... well, long story short, my time there's been very complicated in ways I'd rather not go into right now."

"R-right..." Tara said, the familiar slight stutter in her voice as she looked uncertainly at Spike.

Of course, Spike couldn't exactly blame her for being anxious; they'd never really bonded before everything changed, given her relationship with Red being her main focus-

"Hold on a minute..." Spike said, his eyes widening as a memory of something he'd heard and only briefly registered came to him; it was mostly a guess, but considering how low the odds were against this meeting happening in the first place it couldn't hurt to ask. "Does Red work for Rodney McKay's company?"

"Willow?" Tara said, nodding in confirmation at Spike. "Well, yeah... w-why do you ask?"

"Just something he mentioned recently; we're lookin' into ways to get back home and- hold on a mo..." Spike said, snapping his fingers as he looked at Tara with an ever-broadening grin. "Red did a world-switching thing once; couldn't she-?"

"Th-that was a long time ago, Spike," Tara said, looking apologetically at the vampire before he could finish his sentence (He wondered if she'd done that 'aura-checking' thing she was meant to be able to do to 'see the truth' about him or something like that). "A-add in the fact that the spell she used to d-do that switch was dark magic from the beginning, then there's the f-fact that you didn't come here by magic and s-sending you back with it might be more difficult... and that's just what I can think of right now…"

"She's right," Sam said, nodding in understanding at Tara before she looked back at Spike. "I admit that I don't know much about magic, but considering that cross-universal travel is complicated even when we know what caused us to come here in the first place, it's not something we should try and tackle with magic; for all we know there could be all kind of laws of physics about cross-dimensional travel that we'd be breaking that way..."

"Like that stuff about the Fenyman curves in _Deep Space Nine_?" Mitchell asked.

"Huh?" Spike said, looking at the crippled major in confusion.

"Not much else to do now but catch up on my reading," Mitchell explained nonchalantly, his grim expression the only thing showing how hard he took the topic he was talking about. "One thing I read recently was this _Deep Space Nine _anniversary trilogy- published to celebrate the ten years since the show started, you know- where the crew time-travelled twenty-five years into the future due to this whole thing involving travelling around a wormhole in a slingshot manoeuvre, and the book made this whole big deal about the fact that the crew had to duplicate the thing that brought them to that time in order to go back where they came from, and any attempts to go back by other methods would just shoot them off out of the known universe or something like that..."

"That's... actually, that sounds like it could make sense," Sam said, smiling slightly at Mitchell's contribution before her smile faltered. "I'm... I'm sorry we can't-"

"Just tell me this," Mitchell said, looking firmly at her. "Where you're from... what am I like?"

"A lot better off than you are here," Spike said simply, before he looked thoughtfully at the former major for a moment before continuing his sentence. "And... a good mate."

"Good to know," Mitchell said, shrugging slightly as he looked over at the vampire with a smile, a faint glow of satisfaction in his eyes at Spike's additional comment. "When the multiverse means you can do anything, it's good to know that some yous get a better deal than you did."

Sam had to admit, that was actually an interesting philosophical perspective on the issue of alternate universes that she'd never considered before now.

Then again, maybe it was because the only alternatives she'd encountered before now always seemed to be worse off than she was; the Doctor Samantha Carter that Daniel had met in his first encounter with the quantum mirror had been killed, the second one had lost her husband and nearly lost her world, and even those other selves she'd encountered during that black hole mess had mostly been in the same position as her with just a few minor variations in their lives (There was that one who'd been off on maternity leave, but that wasn't enough information to confirm whether her counterpart in that world was better or worse off than she was, given the lack of information about her husband or the child's father, whichever applied)...

"Well... it was worth asking about, anyway," she said, smiling at Tara as she held out a hand to the younger woman. "Thanks for thinking about it, anyway."

"Y-you're we-welcome," Tara said, smiling uncertainly back at the other woman. "I'll... I'll mention you to Willow; maybe she'll t-think of something I haven't..."

"Every little helps," Spike said, smiling gratefully back at the witch, before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a card that he casually tossed to her. "Just call the number if you think of something; I picked up the phone just in case, but Sam's the only one with the number so far."

"Sure," Tara said, smiling uncertainly at Spike. "I'll... keep that in mind."

Sam wouldn't say that she had a great deal of faith in the idea of Tara and... Willow, if she recalled Spike's stories correctly; he didn't share much about his past because he found it uncomfortable talking about what he'd been like before he got his soul... being able to get them back through magic, given her limited understanding of it, but everything they could do to try and get back home was at least worth an attempt, as far as she was concerned.

The only question was starting to be if they'd survive this world long enough to even _get _home...


	46. Political Debates

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: Spike's speech to Landry in this chapter- you'll know it when you read it- was inspired by Elgin, who also wrote the initial draft of it, and is used with his complete approval.

The Ghost in the Team

Sitting in a chair as she took in the studio around her, Sam wished that she could feel more at ease about this whole situation; she might have given a few briefings in her time, but there was a difference between telling lower-ranking officers what she expected them to do in the upcoming assault and talking to a sizeable portion of the American population.

Still, if she was going to have to 'play ball' with the government to get home, she was going to do it on her terms rather than theirs; they might have the power, but they couldn't give her the opportunity to speak and then completely stop her from speaking her mind, and Spike was only a short distance away in case things became more awkward...

"My guest tonight," Julia Donovan said- evidently this world's version of Donovan had done rather well for herself once the Stargate went public-, "Major Samantha Carter; a ten-year veteran of the Stargate program, and the woman who almost single-handedly saved the world from the recent alien attack. Major, welcome."

"Thank you," Sam replied, out of a lack of anything else to say in this situation.

"Of course, I will be taking calls later in the segment, but first, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?" Donovan asked, briefly addressing the camera before turning her attention back to Sam.

"Well, uh," Sam said, taking a moment to go back over her own background- she knew that it wasn't that different from her history back home, but being addressed as 'Major' after spending over two years as a lieutenant colonel could still throw her off-, before she continued speaking. "As you said, I've been with the Stargate program for the last ten years. Most recently, I was appointed as a special advisor to the President."

"Great," Donovan said, nodding politely at Sam. "In what capacity?"

Exchanging a brief glance with Spike as he stood off to the side, Sam was grateful to see the vampire nod in approval at her; what they were about to do might be potentially dangerous, but they'd talked about it earlier, and even if Spike wasn't entirely comfortable with the political aspects of this situation, they were at least both committed to making a statement right now about their thoughts on the social situation of this Earth.

"My primary role is to consult with the President on matters of planetary defence," Sam explained, turning her full attention back to Donovan, "but I also intend to push for improved foreign relations and the restoration of civil liberties that were lost since the President took office."

"Really?" Donovan said, looking politely at Sam with a slight uncertainty about her expression. "Does the President welcome this kind of input from his military advisors?"

"Well, he wouldn't be much of a President if he wasn't at least willing to _listen_ to other opinions," Sam said, taking care to phrase what she wanted to say appropriately as she briefly looked at the camera; past experience of working with frustrating commanding officers might have given her experience in how to talk to people who were focused on their own points of view, but writing reports in a certain way and inspiring political change on a planet were far from the same thing. "I mean while I understand how we got to where we are today, I think it's time to reassess the situation. The people of this country need to understand that they are in control of their government, not the other way around."

Ignoring the slightly stunned expression on Donovan's face, Sam turned to face the camera directly; what she was about to say _had _to be directly said to the American people, rather than just implying that she was acknowledging their observation of her words. "It's your responsibility as citizens of this country to demand the freedoms that have been taken away from you, demand accountability for why they were withheld in the fir-"

"Major," Donovan suddenly said, her hand on Sam's arm prompting her to stop talking as she turned to look at the show's announcer, the other woman's voice low even as her expression was obviously apologetic, "as much as I admire what you're trying to do... they cut us off."

"Ah," Sam said, once again stuck for anything else she could say to that kind of revelation. "Thanks."

It had taken them significantly less time to act than she'd expected, but she'd managed to say her piece, and that was what really counted; all she could do now was hope that her words had made enough on an impression on the people watching to make a difference...

* * *

"So," Spike asked, casually walking out of the spare bedroom where he'd been staying since their arrival in this universe- using her other self's flat might feel a bit strange and morbid to Sam, but it was the best way to avoid attracting too much attention to them, and at least it gave them a degree of privacy even if some people were wondering about the fact that she had a live-in bodyguard-, looking over at where Sam sat in front of her computer, "how's things?"

"After that interview last night?" Sam said, smiling over at the vampire as she pulled up a search engine. "Just finished breakfast, but I'm just going to see..."

Her voice trailed off as she took in the information before her. "Nothing?"

"You're going to see nothing?" Spike asked.

"No, I mean, there's nothing about my broadcast last night," Sam clarified, looking briefly over at Spike in obvious disappointment before she turned back to the screen and continued to scan through the search results. "Wait a second... 'Major Samantha Carter had to cut short an appearance on 'Inside Access' with Julia Donovan yesterday, when she suddenly took ill... A spokesman said she was suffering from exhaustion due to her busy schedule and would be cancelling her upcoming appearances'."

"Exhaustion?" Spike repeated, staring incredulously at the screen. "They blank out a goddamn _live_ broadcast because they don't like what you're selling, and the best cover they can come up with is that you're bloody _exhausted_?"

"But... people _had _to have heard..." Sam said, even as her voice demonstrated a lack of confidence in her own words.

"Take it from someone who saw what happened when Hitler and McCarthy went nuts as it was happening," Spike said, looking grimly over at Sam. "When people in power want to keep the truth secret from the general public, it _stays _secret."

Sam didn't know what was worse; the thought that Spike was comparing any version of Hank Landry to two of the most self-centred, power-mad leaders of Earth's history- the fact that he'd been present when they were alive was at least relatively easy to accept, given what she knew about his vampire longevity-, or the fact that she agreed with it.

* * *

Walking out of her apartment, Sam realised that she had never felt more alone than she did in that specific moment; Spike's presence beside her was the only thing that even helped her hold on to her anger rather than give in to impotent frustration.

Right now, the people that she trusted in this world consisted solely of Spike; Hammond and Landry were questionable conditional allies at best, the rest of the SGC would probably follow their lead, McKay lacked the growth that he'd experienced back home, and even if she wanted to believe in Mitchell and Tara based on her and Spike's respective knowledge of their counterparts back in their world, they couldn't actually _do _anything to help her...

_God_, she needed to work out a way to get home soon; it was becoming increasingly clear that she and Spike had done everything they could be sure of accomplishing in this world, but _their_ world needed them back if they were going to be sure of saving it...

"Major Carter; Mr Spike," a voice said, prompting her to turn around and face the secret service agent that Landry had identified as 'Charlie' in their first meeting, accompanied by three other men. "You need to come with us."

Leaping into action, Sam grabbed the nearest man and slammed his head into the car next to her, Spike hauling the man away to punch him in the face as Sam felt someone coming up behind her; her new opponent had barely touched her before she had spun around to kick him between the legs, following it up with a punch to the face-

Sam barely had time to register the sound of a zat activating before she lost consciousness.

* * *

As he saw the only person in this world he could count on not to be a self-centred scumbag in a position of power fall to the ground, Spike's vision turned so dark it was only the fact that he was out in daylight that prevented him from shifting into his vamp face.

"You _bas_-!" he began, spinning around to confront the man who'd just shot Sam in the back like the goddamn arseholes everyone on this planet seemed to be, only to find himself suddenly knocked off his feet, falling to the ground before he could even yell out at this new attack from a previously-unseen opponent. For a moment, Spike tried to get back to his feet, but that attempt was cut short when something was rammed into the back of his head with above-average-human force, something that lodged itself into his neck and _burned_... burned with the familiar burn of the holy artefacts he'd spent so long training himself to resist...

"How do you like _that_, asshole?" a horrifyingly familiar voice said.

Spike could barely bring himself to turn around to look at his attacker, his eyes widening in horror at the sight of this world's Buffy as she hauled him into the back of the van, the brief glimpses he caught of other people in the street around them irrelevant as they were basically content to merely watch him and Sam get loaded into the car...

* * *

As she and Spike were forcibly marched into the presidential cabin of the _Prometheus _once again, Sam wondered how any chain of events could turn the people she knew so well into this; Landry was just sitting behind his desk, casually reading a report as though this sort of thing happened every day, while she and Spike were standing in front of him, arms tied and mouths gagged, and the alternate version of Buffy Summers was just standing behind the vampire, her flesh hand hovering over the crucifix she'd jammed into the back of Spike's neck to limit his mobility while her metal hand was flexing as though itching for the chance to tear something out of the vampire.

If it had been any other situation, Sam would have been impressed that Spike could continue to walk with that kind of damage- she didn't think that the crucifix had _broken _anything, but something like that rammed into Spike's neck couldn't be pleasant if everything he'd told her about his reaction to holy artefacts was accurate-, but as it was she was just focused on the fact that they had been abducted by their own government...

"A gag?" Landry said, looking briefly at Sam as the agents led her into the room. "Charlie, was that really necessary?"

"It seemed appropriate, sir," Charlie replied (Sam wasn't sure what should anger her more; how casual the man was about that decision, or the fact that Landry was still just reading the file he'd been studying when they walked in as though her and Spike's presence wasn't important).

"And _this_-," Buffy added, jerking slightly on the crucifix she'd left embedded in Spike's neck, "is to ensure that he doesn't try anything."

"Get it off, and give us room," Landry said, before he turned to look directly at the part-cybernetic Slayer. "Miss Summers, if you could remain, I would prefer you to remove that crucifix from Mr Spike's neck; he can't exactly listen to me if he's got that kind of pain on his mind."

"He's dangerous-" Buffy began.

"So are you," Landry replied, even as he prompted the other agents to leave with a wave of his hand. "I think you can handle it if he tries to attack me."

As Charlie removed Sam's gag, he and the other agent walked out of the room, leaving Buffy to remove the crucifix from Spike's neck as the vampire fell to the floor, gasping in pain as he clutched at the healing wound.

"What am I going to do with you, Colonel?" Landry asked, shaking his head slightly as he continued reading the file.

"You could let us go," Sam replied.

"I still need you," Landry responded, turning a page in the file as though that statement was the end of the matter.

"As a goddamn _publicity stunt_," Spike spat, glaring at the other man as he leant over the leather chairs opposite Landry; hopefully the menacing impression he was trying to create would conceal the fact that he was finding it hard to stand right now...

"And your knowledge of phase technology-" Landry began.

"Spare us that crap; you're just-" Spike began, before Buffy slapped him in the side of the head with her metal arm, throwing him against the nearest wall with a brief yelp of pain.

"_Don't _talk to the President that way, you walking ashtray," she said, glaring firmly at the vampire. "_Everything _he has done has been to keep this country together-"

"And that makes _everything _acceptable?" Spike asked, glaring contemptuously back at her as he used the presence of the wall to regain his balance. "The bastard goes and destroys civil liberties, and it's all OK because everyone who works for him _says _he's doin' a good job?"

"And what gives _you _the right to criticise what we do here?" Buffy countered, Landry only briefly glancing up from the file he was reading even as Sam stepped back; judging from Spike's glare, it would be best if he could just get this particular issue off his chest, and the room was just large enough for the two supernatural entities to exchange a few blows without anything vital getting damaged. "You don't know what we've had to deal with-"

"But I _do _know that the Buffy back home would _never _tolerate this _crap _and _justify _it!" Spike retaliated, glaring firmly back at her. "She questioned authority even when she needed it and never let anyone walk over her; you're just lyin' down and taking everything this _prat's _doing like it came from God himself!"

"And what did her 'questioning authority' actually get her in the end?" Buffy asked scathingly. "Did _she _manage to defeat Glory on her own?"

"_YES_!" Spike spat back in response.

"And who died in the process?" Buffy countered; only Sam noticed the brief shock on Buffy's face at Spike's revelation, suggesting that she'd so convinced herself of her foe's indestructible nature that she'd never even considered the possibility that she could have defeated 'Glory' on her own.

"NOBODY!" Spike insisted, before he paused as Buffy glared at him. "Well... OK, Tara was driven nuts for a bit, and Glory tore everyone in the Knights of Byzantium to pieces, but Glinda recovered and who gives a crap about those loonies?"

"And, let me guess, 'your' Buffy still screws around pretending that she's ever going to have some kind of life outside of her Slaying responsibilities?" Buffy asked, the sarcasm in the 'your' making it clear that she considered her counterpart foolish.

"At least she actually stays _connected _to people," Spike retaliated, glaring firmly back at the partly-cybernetic Slayer. "When was the last time you saved _anyone _you weren't hired to help out?"

"You work for the SGC back in your world; do you really expect me to believe that _you _go out every night-?" Buffy began.

"I was confined to the SGC as a sodding _ghost_ until I got here, so suggesting I didn't do stuff is a bit unfair, and I'll have you know that I got SG-1 to help me take down Dru back home before we ended up here!" Spike retaliated.

"He's telling the truth," Sam said, nodding the sceptical expression on Buffy's face as she stepped forward to stand in front of the younger woman. "I was off-duty after an injury offworld, but Spike requested my teammates' help in investigating a serial killer whose work he recognised in the newspapers, and they killed a vampire that all descriptions confirm was Drusilla."

"Oh, right; you kill _one _vampire since you ended up at the SGC, and you think you're _better _than me?" Buffy said, briefly glaring at Sam before scoffing dismissively at Spike. "What I do preserves our country-"

"What you _do_ does nothing but keep a bunch of totalitarian _gits_ in power!" Spike retaliated.

"And we _won't _keep quiet about the flaws we've seen," Sam interjected, looking firmly at General Landry before he could object to Spike's description; Spike had deserved a chance to vent, but it was time for someone more professional to take over the conversation. "As I said last night, you need to start listening to the people if you want to call yourself President."

"But keeping quiet is exactly what you do in your own world," Landry replied, putting the file down and standing up as he spoke. "The Stargate's still a secret, right? I know you talk about 'freedom' and 'democracy', but you're hiding the greatest secret mankind has ever known from your own people!"

"Yeah, we're keeping it secret because the consequences if it got out would be bloody devastating, as you found out for yourself over here; you're not exactly in any position to criticise us for _that_, mate!" Spike practically spat at the other man.

"Besides," Sam added, refusing to even consider Landry's argument, "my SGC may keep secrets, but at least on our world, we don't intend to abandon the rest of the galaxy to the Ori."

"Well maybe not now," Landry said, looking inquiringly at her. "But what do you think will happen if you give them a foolproof way to hide like you've given us? Don't be surprised if the rest of the galaxy suddenly doesn't seem that important anymore."

"What; you think just because _you _gave up we're all going to turn tail and hide?" Spike asked, glaring scathingly at the President. "You _do _know you're following in some really crap footsteps, right?"

"In what way?" Landry asked, looking back at Spike.

"Everything we've seen since we came to this world is nothing I haven't seen before, mate," Spike said, looking at the President with a cold stare as he indicated Buffy. "I'm guessing she told you how old I was, right?"

"Approximately a hundred and forty, if I remember correctly," Landry replied, his tone a neutral one that gave little indication about what he thought of what Spike was saying to him or his actual age.

"Good," Spike said, glaring firmly at Landry. "Because you'll know I'm telling the truth when I tell you that I saw this kind of thing back in Germany in the thirties, I saw it in Moscow under Stalin's iron fist, I saw it in Beijing when Mau was making a total pig's ear out of the country, and I got a _really_ good look at the Red Scare, up close and personal-like. Dru and me crashed I dunno how many Klan meetings in the Sixties, and we spent months eating nothing but bedsheet-wearing Bible-bashing nationalist loonies. I saw the mess Franco made in Spain, Galtieri's Argentina, post-revolution Iran... and it was always, _always_ the same."

"They took it for their own sake; I'm just trying-" Landry began.

"Yeah, that's what it always _starts _with; what happens when that excuse stops being effective any more?" Spike retorted, still glaring at the President. "What've you got lined up for your next step; planning to overturn the umpteenth amendment, so you ain't limited to just two terms in office? Then get yourself declared 'president for life' or something after that? Maybe open up a few gulags, so you can get rid of everyone and anyone who disagrees with what you're doing?"

"We are _trying _to keep Earth intact-!" Buffy began, glaring angrily at the vampire.

"By locking up anyone who doesn't agree with what you're doing?" Sam asked, looking pointedly over at Buffy. "From what Spike told me, you essentially told the organisation that's meant to be responsible for your training as a Slayer to leave you alone because you didn't like what they were asking you to do? Does the fact that they're not restricting you _personally _now really make that much difference to you?"

"What's next?" Spike asked, picking up the rant, his attention still coldly focused on Landry. "You going to invade any country that doesn't like what you're up to? Maybe nuke a couple, just to set an example? Then build yourself a global empire, one that'll 'last a thousand years'? Start using a Goa'uld sarcophagus to extend your lifespan, because you're convinced that the world ain't ready for someone else to rule it? Then go completely mental from that sarcophagus abuse thing I've heard about and turn yourself into the first human System Lord or something? 'Cause you keep on the way that you're going right now, I wouldn't put it past you."

"I am _trying _to protect this country," Landry said, staring coldly back at Spike. "Do you think I want to be remembered as the president who ended democracy?"

"You'll end up that way if you don't at least _try _and listen to us, from where I'm sitting," Spike replied firmly. "Stuff like what you're doing _always _starts small, but if it ain't stopped, it'll grow and grow and grow, getting faster and faster and faster all the time, and in the end you will go down in the sodding history books as an inhuman mass-murdering monster who makes the likes of _me_ look like a lifelong volunteer at the Samaritan's helpline by comparison."

He gave Landry a moment of silence to process what he'd just said before he turned to look at Buffy, the cold stare something he hadn't directed at his world's Buffy even when he'd been evil and acting as her enemy. "I don't know much about how that guy compares to the version we've got back home- only met his counterpart a few months back, and I've spent more time with everyone else anyway-, but I do know my world's you, and I know that if _that_-" he indicated the Slayer's cybernetic arm- "happened to the her I know back home, she'd thank everyone for getting her back to fighting standard and then get right back to kicking vamp arse."

"And you're certain of that?" Buffy asked, glaring at Spike.

"I'm betting the sodding farm on it," Spike replied firmly.

"And, for what it's worth," Sam said, shooting her own glare at the man sitting behind the desk, "Spike may not be able to speak for him, but I've served under him for almost two years by now, and I happen to know that _General _Hank Landry wouldn't do what you just suggested."

Looking at them in silent contemplation for a moment, Landry finally smiled and turned away, leaving Sam and Spike to be marched out of the room by Buffy and taken to another cabin in the ship.

"You can wait there until the President decides what to do with you," she said, shoving Spike through the door with slightly more force than was necessary while Sam simply walked into the room; evidently, even if she considered both of them traitors, Buffy was more willing to give Sam some slack than she was willing to give Spike.

"Still the sodding lapdog, huh?" Spike said, turning to glare at her after taking a moment to regain his balance. "You know, maybe things are easier for you here while you're taking orders, but I never thought that _any _version of you'd be the type to say 'How high?' when someone asked you to jump."

"I don't have the luxury of taking chances in this world," Buffy replied, even as her expression shifted slightly as she looked at the two of them, a brief gleam of pain in her remaining eye hinting at a time when she would have done just what Spike was reminding her of...

Then she walked out of the room and the door shut behind her, leaving Sam and Spike looking at each other in a cabin with nothing else to do.

"So," Spike said, shrugging awkwardly after a few moments, stuck for anything else to do in their current position- it wasn't like there was any kind of 'post-chewing-out-the-President-for-dictator-like- behaviour' stuff he could expect to do right now, after all-, "anyone for charades?"


	47. Back Over the Bridge

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

AN: For those who wish to know, some of the scientific elements here was inspired by the _Star Trek: Enterprise_ novel 'Daedalus's Children'- a rather good book; it's the second of a two-part novel where a dimensional rift sends _Enterprise_ into a parallel universe-, regarding how some universes differ from each other; hope you like it.

The Ghost in the Team

After spending the better part of two hours sitting in their 'cell', alternating between Spike's initial suggestion of Charades and Sam writing out some equations from memory while Spike scribbled out something that he wouldn't let Sam read- she was just grateful that they'd been provided with paper; her and Spike might be friends, but there just weren't enough conversation topics available for them in this kind of environment-, a new pair of agents came to the door and took them back to the transporter room, refusing to answer either of their questions before they were sent back down to Stargate Command.

Sam's mood only picked up when the two of them were shown to her counterpart's lab, where they found Rodney McKay working on a computer; McKay might not be perfect, but they wouldn't exactly bring her and Spike to see him in a relatively small room if they had some kind of negative ulterior plan in mind.

"Ah, Colonel, how nice to see you again," McKay said, looking up at Sam before nodding awkwardly at the two agents who had escorted them here. "Yes... well... thank you."

"What are you doing here, Rod?" Spike asked, looking inquiringly at the Canadian physicist as the agents left the room and he and Sam walked further into it to stand on the other side of his desk.

"Ah, it's the, uh, first day on the new job," McKay replied, shrugging as he looked at Sam. "Your old job, actually; 'Special Advisor to the President'. Bit of a paycut, but, uh, well let's just say they were, uh... persuasive?"

"In other words, they basically told you to take over where we left off or they'd chuck you in jail for aiding certain parties that you may or may not have actually spent time talking to?" Spike asked, looking sympathetically at the physicist.

McKay said nothing in response, but his grim nod was all the answer that Sam and Spike needed; he'd received the job because it was easier for President Landry to put pressure on him than it was to try and make Sam and Spike do what he wanted.

"I'm so sorry," Sam said, looking apologetically at the Canadian physicist; McKay might be annoying at times, but he didn't deserve to have his career put on hold because someone else wanted him to do something.

"Yeah, me too," McKay replied, before he looked back at his desk, clearly preferring to move on to another topic. "Well, the first order of business is to create an inter-universal bridge. Something that I've done in another reality, apparently."

"Are you serious?" Sam said, looking at him in surprise; she'd almost given up hope that they'd ever get to go back, and now she was being told that someone had been _ordered _to help them?

"Mmm," McKay nodded in response. "Yeah, I'm not sure what you said, but, uh, they're letting you go." He smiled encouragingly at them. "They even let me bring one of my staff along to help with the equations."

"Really?" Sam said curiously. "Who?"

"OK," a female voice said, prompting Sam and Spike to turn around as a young red-haired woman walked into the lab, wire-frame glasses on her face as she studied various sheets of paper in her hands, walking around the desk to stand next to McKay without seemingly noticing the other two arrivals. "I've confirmed the specifics of the formulas used to construct the other bridge you told me about, and if we're dealing with matter that originated from the universe we're attempting to target, I should be able to calculate the dimensional frequency of the other world by-"

"_Red_?" Spike said, grinning broadly after a few moments of looking at the new arrival in stunned silence; the woman before him was dressed in a sharp-looking business suit and had her hair tied back in a professional manner, but she was surprisingly young for someone working with any version of the notoriously arrogant McKay.

"_What_-?" the red-haired woman said, briefly starting at the sight of Spike before she visibly calmed herself. "Oh... right; you're the _other _Spike I've heard about, right?"

"Depends on what way you're looking at it, but from where you stand, that's it, yep," Spike said, smiling at her. "And you're this world's Willow Rosenberg?"

"That's me," Willow said, smiling uncertainly back at him before she turned to look at Sam. "So... you're the Samantha Carter from another universe?"

"Yes," Sam said, nodding at Willow as she quickly went over what Spike had told her about this woman's counterpart; a gifted witch and computer hacker, suffered a period of magical 'addiction' last year when she became too used to using it to get what she wanted, discovered that she was a lesbian at college, but generally one of the smartest people Spike had met. "And... well, no offence intended to your world, but I'd like to get back to mine."

"Hey, I totally get; home is where your rump rests and all that," Willow said, smiling reassuringly at Sam before she turned her attention back to the notebook in her hand with a thoughtful frown. "I was just wondering... what's the Hubble Constant of your universe?"

"What's the Hubble Constant?" Spike asked, looking at Sam in confusion before she could answer that question. "Something to do with bubbles?"

"The Hubble Constant refers to the rate at which the universe is expanding outwards from the moment and location of the Big Bang," Sam explained, before she turned back to look at Willow with an intrigued smile. "You think you can use that to find our original universe?"

"Well, not _just _the Hubble Constant- considering what I've heard about Entropic Cascade Failure, there's also some ground to suggest that I could figure out where you come from if I can work out how the matter in your bodies differs from the matter around us, although that will obviously be more difficult to accomplish given that I can't compare you to your other selves here and work out how the universe knows which of you to 'reject'-, but whoever complained about having too much data when carrying out this kind of experiment, right?" Willow said, smiling brightly at Sam.

"Yeah..." Sam said, nodding at the young redhead with a slightly dazed smile; she'd known from Spike's occasional stories about his original 'group' that Willow was prone to talking a lot, but the idea that someone could come up with a sentence that long without stopping- even Daniel needed to take a breath when giving similar explanations- was still somewhat unexpected. "You think they might be different?"

"Well, if it was just a matter of the universe splitting when people have to make different decisions, things would be... well, a lot more complicated," Willow said, shrugging uncertainly as she looked at Sam. "I mean, most of that theory comes down to a whole series of quantum mechanics and calculations that I'm not sure many people outside this room could understand-"

"And probably only three of us here could understand that anyway," McKay added, looking over at Spike with a brief but pointed stare.

"_Anyway_," Sam said, drawing attention away from McKay's stare as she looked at Willow, "the point is, you think that you can calculate the conditions at our end of the cross-universal bridge and work out how to focus it onto our universe rather than just creating a bridge that links to other universes at random?"

"Well, what Doctor McKay showed me of the equations you've provided him with so far was enough to calculate how to create the bridge; the only really tricky bit was working out how to narrow it down to focus on a _specific _universe rather than just randomly opening it to a different universe when compared to our own, but I should be able to pull that off with whatever you can provide..." Willow said, before she looked curiously over at Spike. "You really come from another world?"

"Yeah, I do," Spike said, nodding briefly at her, his expression a blank one that gave no indication how he felt about Willow's sudden question.

"A world where... you continued to fight with us?" Willow continued, looking uncertainly at the vampire.

"Pretty much," Spike confirmed, shrugging in a slightly awkward manner (If Sam recalled his stories correctly, and considering when this timeline split from theirs, Spike probably wasn't sure how Willow would react to learning the specifics of what had happened to her in particular back home, so he was trying to avoid going to go into too much detail about that unless he really had to). "Oh, and you're still in touch with the rest of the gang back home last time I checked; I hear you split up after things went south fighting Glory here, but back home you all came through it pretty much intact, and stayed together at least until Sunnydale sank a few months back-"

"Sunnydale _sank_?" Willow repeated, looking at him in surprise, her apprehension at talking to the man she'd never had the chance to regard as anything other than an awkward enemy who'd only allied with them out of a lack of anything else to do with himself.

"Well, you all triggered the destruction of the Hellmouth to take out an army of uber-vampires being used by this psychotic force of evil; it was a thing that probably won't happen here, so no point talking about it," Spike said, shrugging as he looked awkwardly at Willow, clearly hoping that she wouldn't ask him for any more detail (Not that Sam could blame him for not wanting to talk about it; discussing the events that led to you collapsing into dust couldn't be pleasant, even if you were brought back to life afterwards).

"_Anyway_," McKay said, looking at Spike with a pointed glare- Sam wondered if it was just because he didn't understand or believe what Spike was talking about, but refrained from confronting him about it; that kind of attitude wasn't going to convince him to help them- before he indicated the current universe's version of Merlin's phase-shifting device, "talking of inter-universal differences, once we've completed the transfer, our second order of business is to make _this _work like yours..."

"And you wanted some pointers?" Spike asked, his expression souring as he looked at the physicist.

"Well... I know President Landry's made _some _mistakes, but that doesn't mean the entire _planet _deserves to be left without its best line of defence..." Willow began, looking awkwardly at the vampire.

"And assuming you succeed, what then?" Sam asked, addressing both of the other scientists, Spike standing behind her in his 'bodyguard' pose.

"Then... we're safe," McKay replied, clearly thinking that was enough.

"Key theme there is that _Earth _is safe," Spike pointed out, glaring at the other man as he subconsciously lowered his opinion of him. "There's still a whole galaxy out there to worry about."

"Exactly," Sam said, walking around the table as she looked at McKay and Willow. "Millions of people are dying, millions more are being subjugated to a false religion."

"You just never quit, do you?" McKay said, shaking his head slightly as Willow looked awkwardly around the room while trying not to look at Spike or Sam.

"Deep down," Sam said, looking at McKay firmly, "I know your President's a good man."

"Just like I know that your Buffy's still got to be a good person when it counts," Spike added, looking over at Willow. "Maybe you just need to give her the chance to remember it."

"We haven't spoken for years-" Willow began.

"She forgave you after you made some _serious _mistakes back home," Spike said, looking solemnly at her, hoping that his manner would compensate for his reluctance to provide the full details. "Can you really say you can't at least _try _to do the same thing for her here?"

Willow didn't reply to that statement, but the look of silent longing on her face was more than Spike needed.

Even if she wouldn't admit to it, she still missed her friend...

"Whatever they've become, they both fundamentally want to do the right thing," Sam said, looking between the other two scientists with an encouraging smile. "Maybe President Landry and Agent Summers just need... a persistent voice in their ears, nudging them in the right direction."

"And you think that we'd be good at that?" McKay asked.

"Whatever other crap they went through back home, my Buffy always had faith in my Willow," Spike said, looking firmly over at the red-haired wiccan/scientist. "I'm not going to buy that this one doesn't have _some _kind of faith in you."

"Just think about it," Sam said, looking over at McKay. "I don't know much about Willow Rosenberg back home, but I trust Spike's judgement, and the Rodney McKay I know is... very good at making his point."

"Oh," McKay said, looking at her with a thoughtful smile, before he shrugged. "Well, let's get on with it, shall we?"

* * *

The subsequent research into the recreation of the matter bridge went on relatively quickly, even if most of it went over Spike's head; he'd almost forgotten how good Red was at the scientific stuff, given how much the version he'd known had focused on magic in the last few years. With Sam providing information about her world that he couldn't believe she could remember that accurately, combined with the sheer natural scientific genius of the three of them, the necessary equipment had soon been put together, leaving them to prepare the equipment at their end.

"And you're _sure _this won't just turn me intangible again, right?" Spike asked, looking apprehensively at the other two scientists. "I mean, this isn't exactly normal..."

"What about this situation _is _normal?" Willow asked with a smile. "It's mostly guesswork, of course, but what I've seen of the equations suggests that, once you've been re-integrated, you'll stay that way; it's not like we understand how you ended up phased in the first place, after all."

Privately, Sam was slightly apprehensive about how things would go back in her world now that Spike was restored to corporeal form- they'd only just managed to keep his vampire status secret over here, and that had taken a significant effort at times, so how would an SGC aware of Spike's history react to the knowledge that he had a corporeal form once more?-, but this wasn't the time to worry about that when other things were going so well.

In any case, they could at least be certain that he would still be able to go on missions once they returned home, regardless of how alien suns affected vampires. The modified shield device that Spike had been using since he'd arrived here was still in his pocket, but Sam wasn't worried about any consequences of taking it along with them; a non-living object wouldn't be subject to the rules of entropic cascade failure, so Spike was perfectly free to take that back with him, and it would save her having to create a new one for him once they were home.

Whether the SGC or the IOA would _allow _him to go on missions was something she'd deal with when they got there…

"Well..." Willow said, shrugging uncertainly as she headed for the door to the lab, pausing only to look back at Sam and Spike. "Get ready to phase out, and... good luck."

"Thanks," Sam said, waiting a moment for Willow to leave the room and close the door behind her before she activated Merlin's device, the familiar glow surrounding her and Spike as they shifted back into another phase. After waiting for a moment, the same glowing hole that had appeared when they'd been taken into this world appeared in the air before them, followed by the familiar feeling of them being pulled into something, before they reappeared in a brighter version of the lab that they'd been in previously (Evidently, their greater control made this transference a lot smoother than it might have been).

Looking around after the sucking sensation had vanished, Sam and Spike quickly noted that the previously-empty room was occupied by Doctor Lee, standing a short distance away from them, pacing the room with a scanner and microphones. Having confirmed that there was nothing immediately in their area, Sam deactivated Merlin's device, allowing the bright light to surround them for a moment before it faded as they reverted back into corporeal form.

"Doctor Lee!" Sam said, Spike unable to stop himself from smiling slightly as Lee turned around so sharply that he dropped the scanner he was holding, causing a brief squeal of sound that prompted the two new arrivals to wince in sympathy before Lee pulled the headphones off, grinning enthusiastically at them.

"You're back!" he said.

"That we are," Spike confirmed, before he placed his hand on the table with a casual smile as he glanced over at Sam. "And it looks like I'm still solid."

"Solid?" Lee said, looking at the vampire in surprise. "Are- what-?"

"I'll... explain later," Sam said, smiling briefly at the doctor. "In the meantime... where's the rest of SG-1?"

* * *

When he was finally reunited with the rest of SG-1- Landry was fortunately off-base dealing with something else at the moment, so they weren't obliged to debrief him first-, all of Spike's planned quips and jokes went out of the window as soon as he saw Vala standing in Sam's lab alongside Teal'c and Mitchell. With previous restrictions and limitations on his physical condition no longer applicable, Spike walked over to the ex-space thief, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her until Vala's response to him began to slow down, prompting him to pull back as she gasped for oxygen.

"Sorry," Spike said, looking apologetically at Vala as she took deep breathes while grinning at the vampire in a slightly silly manner. "Last couple of partners I had... well, they had better lung capacity than the norm; guess I forgot-"

"Hold on; what actually _happened _there?" Mitchell asked, looking at the vampire in confusion. "I thought you couldn't... well..."

"Spike became solid while we were away," Sam said, looking at the others with a grin. "I'll explain the details in my report, but basically we were pulled into another reality while I was experimenting with Merlin's device, and we think that the transition from one reality to the other reintegrated Spike's molecules back into a single cohesive structure during the trip; he's been solid ever since we arrived in that world, and he stayed intact on the return as well."

For a moment, Sam paused, lost in recollection of the events of the last few weeks, but she swiftly turned her attention back to the teammates currently around her. "It wasn't always easy keeping him fed, of course- I had to steal some equipment so that I could extract my own blood to feed him at times when we couldn't access the infirmary supplies without suspicion-, but we couldn't risk anyone there finding out what he was-"

"But the key point is that he's now solid for good, right?" Vala asked, looking anxiously at Sam.

"As far as we can tell, yes," Sam confirmed.

"Well," Mitchell said, looking at Spike with a slight smile, "we lose the intangible guy, but gain a vampire; that's... something, anyway."

"You're not worried about that?" Spike asked, looking at Mitchell in surprise.

"I think we can agree that you've earned some trust after saving Dakara," Mitchell said, shrugging as he looked at the vampire. "You might be a vampire, but you're the vamp who saved a planet and helped us get our hands on an enemy ship when we'd done nothing to help you with your problem other than toss around some ideas; we're not going to drop you just because you've got… a socially awkward appetite."

"Indeed," Teal'c said, nodding in agreement of Mitchell's assessment. "You have proven yourself to be an honourable ally and a courageous teammate, Spike; we will not abandon you merely because you have an unusual diet."

"Talking of the team... have you found out anything about Daniel?" Sam asked, looking hopefully at the others, only for her hope to die as she noticed their grim expressions. "No news, huh?"

"Nothing," Vala said, her arm still around Spike even as she shook her head apologetically at Sam's question.

"Well, at least we got you two back," Mitchell said, looking down at the desk dejectedly as he sat on a chair on the other side, the initial optimism created by Spike's return to corporeal form lost with the reminder that they were still one man short.

"And we're _very _glad to be back," Sam said, smiling as she looked at the rest of the team. "The whole thing was kind of creepy."

"Tell me about it; my ex is a cyborg and Red's a programmer for the arrogant Canadian git..." Spike mused.

"When you say 'arrogant Canadian git', you mean McKay, right?" Mitchell asked, looking at the vampire curiously. "Your friend worked in Atlantis?"

"Actually, McKay was just a dot-com guy," Sam clarified. "From what Spike and I could tell, Atlantis never really got off the ground, what with all the local problems they were dealing with over there..."

"Talking of which, what was I like in that reality?" Vala asked.

"In jail," Spike said simply; he and Sam had already agreed not to tell anyone about Vala's counterpart's 'black ops' missions unless they absolutely had to, given what it said about the descent of that world's government (Privately, Spike also wanted to avoid giving anyone any ideas about asking Vala to do that here, but he hadn't voiced it).

"Not again!" Vala said, rolling her eyes at the news.

"What about the rest of us?" Mitchell asked, after looking at Vala with an ambiguous smile.

"You know," Sam said, looking awkwardly at the rest of the team, "to be honest, I'd really rather not talk about it."

"We'd rather hear about things over here," Spike said, smiling hopefully at them. "What have you been doing while we were away?"

For a moment, there was silence as the others exchanged awkward looks, until Teal'c finally answered the question.

"When you did not return for several hours, we began to suspect that something might have gone wrong," the Jaffa said.

"Well, we just assumed that the machine had malfunctioned, and you were stuck out of phase," Vala clarified, smiling awkwardly at Sam and Spike.

"We attempted to communicate with you using the Sodan cloaking device, and when that failed..." Teal'c continued, looking between the two returnees.

"What?" Sam asked, when nobody continued Teal'c's story.

"We took shifts," Vala said. "Trying to keep... you company..."

"Hold on; you mean-?" Spike said, smiling at the image created.

"Yeah, we talked to an empty room," Mitchell said, clearly wanting to get it said before anyone else did.

"For two weeks?" Sam asked, unable to restrain the incredulous tone at that idea.

"It did stop eventually," Mitchell said, clearly trying to salvage his dignity before he resigned himself to confessing the facts, "but it did go on... for... quite some time."

"Indeed," Teal'c said, looking shamefully at the floor.

"Well, that must have been some conversation," Sam said, leaning over her desk as she smiled at the others. "What did you say?"

"You know, I've got a file to read," Mitchell said, quickly standing up and heading for the door.

"I have a sparring session with Sergeant Siler," Teal'c said, before he headed for the door himself.

"While I would normally be all for talking," Vala said, leaning over to place a hand on Spike's shoulder, "right now I think you both understand that I'd prefer to do this."

With that said, Vala pulled Spike towards her so that her mouth met his, her arms wrapping around his neck as she gave him a very enthusiastic kiss that seemed to be trying to make up for all the kisses they'd been unable to share in the past.

"I'll just... go," Sam said, smiling slightly at the satisfied expression on Spike's face as he wrapped his arms around Vala, clearly revelling in his restored corporeal form as he explored the side of his relationship that they'd never had the chance to develop before now.

A part of Sam wasn't sure how the restoration of physical contact to the equation would affect their future- she and Daniel had privately wondered if part of what made Spike and Vala work as a couple was the fact that neither of them could simply 'shag the other and leave' as Spike might put it (They had been spending too much time with him if he was having that kind of impact on them)- but the rest of her was just satisfied that her friends seemed to be doing well in their renewed relationship despite the weeks they'd spent apart.

As Sam walked away to leave the vampire and the ex-thief to their own devices, she barely registered the small part of herself that was wishing that someone was here to give _her _a kiss like that...

But it wasn't happening; the person she wanted to kiss... the person she'd spent so long trying _not _to think about in that sense because she didn't want to risk their friendship... the person who'd been on her mind most of the time after SG-1 went their separate ways after the final defeat of Anubis and the Replicators...

He wasn't here.

And she didn't know when he'd be back...

* * *

None of the SGC staff could have known it, but even as SG-1 were reunited, in a room several miles away from the SGC, a man covered in tattoos was already aware of their reunion.

"_Finally_..." Lindsay McDonald said, smiling as he stared at the glowing crystal that indicated Spike's return to corporeal form.

Tracking that amulet down and forming this kind of link with it had been tedious to the extreme, but with his initial spell to restore Spike having failed, he'd had to resort to more time-consuming methods; given how quickly the gem had gone dark after he'd acquired it, he'd wondered for a time if it had been destroyed, but the current glow clearly indicated that Spike was not only back, but restored to full corporeal form.

It might not be because of his own machinations, but he finally had what he was looking for; the other vampire with a soul, with a new lease on life, a need for a purpose, _and _a grudge against Angel into the bargain.

All he had to do now was approach the guy with the right message...

* * *

AN 2: Well, that's Sam and Spike back on their Earth; I have an idea or two coming up for the next chapter or so before we get into "The Shroud" and the conclusion of this story, but suggestions will be considered


	48. Dating Interruptions

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

It had taken a while for them to arrange- aside from all the time Sam and Spike spent getting updated on what had happened in the SGC while they'd been away, including Atlantis being reoccupied, the rest of SG-1 had spent several hours sending messages to the IOA and General Landry arguing that Spike should be provided with retroactive backpay dating from his amulet's arrival in the SGC to the present, now that he actually had a practical need for it-, but it had finally happened; Spike had the money, time and inclination to go to a nice local restaurant- recommended by some of his teammates- with someone he… at least liked… and he was going to take it.

Actually, now that he was standing outside the door to Vala's room, Spike wondered why he was feeling so awkward about this; it wasn't like he and Vala hadn't been out on dates before...

Then again, that wasn't exactly true; they'd never been _out _on what could be considered a date, they'd just stayed in and watched a movie or something to avoid the questions that might have been attracted if Spike had accidentally walked through something or people had questioned his inability to eat.

Actually, now that he thought about it, had he ever actually been on a _date _date before?

Discounting his liaisons with Buffy- they couldn't really count as 'dates' as they never really did much of anything other than shag in whatever location they'd met in-, that thing with the Goth girl whose name he couldn't remember at Anya's wedding as it hadn't been anything more than a rather pathetic attempt to make Buffy jealous, and his time with Drusilla where a 'date' consisted of them killing things together...

Bloody Hell, he'd never actually _dated _anyone in the conventional sense, had he?

OK, so it wasn't like he had no clues about what to do whatsoever- he'd spent enough time stalking couples to know what to do, along with basic common sense-, but to realise that he'd never actually had a genuine date was a bit daunting...

Still, on the bright side, Vala arguably hadn't had one either- she might not talk about her pre-Qetesh life that much, but she'd lived on a different planet, so it wasn't unreasonable to assume that her world had different rules of 'courtship' than what they had here-, so when you got down to it, they were probably equally at sea in this situation.

It might have been strange to think about, particularly after he'd spent so much of his early time in Sunnydale insisting that he was still the same 'Big Bad', but Spike was really rather enjoying this opportunity to re-invent himself now that he was at the SGC. With no real reason to get back in touch with the Scoobies- he wasn't interested in re-establishing his relationship with Buffy, things with Dawn had just been complicated the last time they'd seen each other, and the rest of the gang had just been acquaintances at best-, he was glad to get back to basics and start over, re-creating himself as a man who wanted to fight for Earth rather than a formerly soulless vampire who wanted to prove himself to one person…

As the door opened and Vala walked into the corridor, Spike's eyes widened at the sight before him, all thoughts of past dating history forgotten in the face of his present in _every _sense of the word. He had no idea when she'd had the time or opportunity to get them, but Vala was dressed in tight leather pants and a black leather jacket of a similar length to his, over a dark green top that exposed a very eye-catching amount of cleavage, her hair casually hanging down around her shoulders…

"You like?" Vala asked, giving him an experimental twirl as she showed off her outfit, leaving Spike staring at her in surprise for a moment before he regained his composure and nodded.

"Trust me on this, luv," he said, the endearment slipping out before he even registered it as he stepped up to place a hand around her waist, "you look _incredible_."

"Good," Vala said, giving him a brief kiss before she stepped back with a broad grin. "Well, let's be off; from what I've heard, those restaurant bookings aren't going to wait forever, after all."

With that said, she turned to head for the elevator at the end of the corridor, but paused as she turned back to look at him. "Just to check-"

"I _can _eat, Val; it just... well, meat aside, it probably won't taste much of anything, when you get down to it," Spike said, guessing at her question as he smiled reassuringly at her. "Don't worry, though; I'll still be able to digest it easily enough, and the texture variety's interesting."

"Good," Vala said, smiling warmly at him before she held out her arm, initial concern forgotten in the face of this more positive news. "Shall we?"

"We shall," Spike said, grinning back at Vala as they turned and began to walk towards the lift that would lead them to the ground level of the SGC.

* * *

A few hours later, standing on the edge of a bar, sipping at his drink, Spike smiled at the sight of Vala enjoying her latest dance in the middle of the club.

The current environment wasn't exactly something the vampire known as William the Bloody would have chosen on his own accord- it brought back a few too many memories of all the time he'd spent at the Bronze in Sunnydale, which didn't help his resolve to try and make new memories that had nothing to do with Buffy and would reinforce his decision to re-invent himself away from anyone's previous expectations-, but he had wanted to give Vala the chance to see parts of Earth she wouldn't have experienced before, which included this kind of club after the dinner they'd had at one of the more formal places Daniel or the rest of SG-1 had recommended they go to (Apparently there was this one bar where the original team were banned from returning due to a fight they'd started while affected by these strength-enhancing bracelets that had erratic effects on their moods, but Spike wasn't concerned about that; it had been a long time ago and he knew enough about drugs making you loopy).

Besides, seeing Vala moving on the dancefloor in those tight leather trousers and that top was a sight he wouldn't pass up any time soon...

Spike's pleasant thoughts were cut off when a man suddenly appeared, dressed in a pink-and-white shirt with rolled-up sleeves and hair hanging down to around the back of his neck, and placed a drink in front of the vampire without even a cursory introduction.

"Uh..." Spike said, looking in confusion at his new beer before looking at the man who'd given it to him. "Thanks, but I'll be honest, mate; you're not my type, and I'm here with someone already. So be a good lad and push off."

Moving the drink to the other end of the bar, Spike stared at the man for a few moments in the hopes of prompting him to leave on his own, but it soon became clear that the new arrival was apparently content to just stare at Spike.

"Look," the vampire said, deciding he might as well deal with this before Vala got back, "what are you gawking at?"

"A guy like you, whiling away his time in some bar in Colorado?" the man said, a solemn expression on his face as he looked at Spike. "Look like somebody who's feeling kinda lost."

"I'm here because my date wanted to check out something new; I'm not worried about my place in the world," Spike said, enjoying the slight surprise on the other man's face at Spike's response- evidently he hadn't been expecting Spike to be here with anyone, even if he knew enough to know that Spike was in this city- before it resumed a more neutral expression.

"We need to talk," the man said, still trying to look confident despite Spike's own lowering opinion of the man's status; if he didn't know about Vala, he clearly didn't know as much about Spike as the 'guy like you' comment might imply in the right context.

"You know, we really don't," Spike retorted, standing up and walking over to glare more directly at the other man, noting Vala heading off to the toilet without any sign that she'd noticed him talking to this guy; at least he could probably finish this 'chat' without having to let her know about it and raise questions he wouldn't be able to answer. "I don't know what you're selling, but best you peddle your wares someplace else if you know what's good for you."

"Hey, Spike," the man said, dispelling the admittedly fragile hope Spike had been nurturing that this was all just some weird come-on, "get any interesting mail a while back?"

_Interesting mail_? Spike thought, confused at the new turn of events. _What kind of mail_...

His eyes widened in shock at the memory of a particular anomaly that still hadn't been accounted for.

"That package?" he said, turning to look at the other man, taking care to keep his voice relatively low; even if they were in a public setting with a fair amount of background noise, he wasn't going to give anyone the chance to potentially accuse him of leaking classified information. "That was _you_? Who the bloody hell _are _you?"

"Your new best friend," the man said, with a smug expression that automatically earned him a place on Spike's hit-list; clearly, if he thought the package had made some kind of impression on Spike, he knew nothing about what was really going on in Spike's life right now and had no reason to believe that he had a right to say anything on that topic.

"What; because you sent me some package that emitted a weird energy burst?" Spike said, looking sceptically at the man, enjoying the uncomfortable expression that appeared on the man's face at that comment. "Not exactly a ringing endorsement."

"That was actually meant to restore you to corporeal form-" the man said, even as his voice became less assertive now that he was being asked to explain something without proof.

"And yet, I pulled it off without you; not really seeing why I need _you _as a 'best friend' when I've already got a good group," Spike retorted, glaring at the other man after tapping his knuckles against the bar behind him to verify his last statement. "What exactly have you done for me other than be bloody vague and mysterious while trying to 'help' me?"

"I'm a bit more than that," the man said, a slight edge of frustration in his eyes even as he continued to stare at Spike; evidently he had come up with a plan and was trying to stick to it despite Spike having clearly diverged from the script. "I was actually going to recover that amulet myself before Major Finn-"

"Yeah, we can all _say_ that we were going to do some good things but someone else beat up to it; again, not really anything that I'm that interested in hearing," Spike countered, walking forward to move his hand into a position where he could easily grab this guy's arm if the need arose; his time as Sam's bodyguard in the other world might have given him a useful crash course in the value of patience, but cryptic statements were still something that annoyed him at the best of times, and the strange tattoos he could see on this guy's arms didn't improve his mood. "I'll make this simple; who are you, what are you, what do you want with me, and you should think about how many bones I can break before you give me any kind of answer?"

"You can call me Doyle," the man said, looking at Spike with a frustratingly calm manner despite his current position. "But this isn't about what I want... it's about what you want."

"In what way?" Spike asked; the guy might have been wrong about several details so far, but it might be worthwhile just humouring him at least…

"Now that your life's back, what are you going to do with it?" 'Doyle'- something about that name didn't quite sound right to Spike- asked, his eyes flicking over Spike in a thoughtful manner.

Spike couldn't believe it; was this 'Doyle' guy actually trying to tell him what to do now that he had a solid form again?

"I've heard enough," Spike said, rolling his eyes as he turned around to look towards the toilet for some sign of Vala; he thought there'd been a bit of a queue for it before she got there, but she'd have to be done soon, right?

"Aren't you feeling a bit out of place here?" 'Doyle' said, Spike's long experience with people the only thing that allowed him to pick up the slight edge of desperation in his voice as he stood up to look more directly at the vampire. "I mean, Colorado isn't-"

"What it _is_," Spike said, looking firmly back at 'Doyle', "is the place where I work, the place where my friends work, the place where my current _date_ works, and the place where I'm staying at least until I've managed to find a lost friend of mine, so you can either belt up or get lost, preferably both."

"You're working in an abandoned military base-" 'Doyle' began.

"You don't know _where _I'm working and you don't have the right to know what I do, so stop acting like you do and get lost," Spike said, snorting in satisfaction at the stumped look on his unwanted guest's face before he turned around in preparation to walk away. "We clear?"

"You've got a destiny-" the man began, only for Spike to turn around and grab him by the throat, hauling his persistently annoying 'guest' towards him with a low growl.

"I don't know what I have to do to spell it out any clearer than I have already," he said, glaring coldly at the man before him, "so I'll just say this one more time; I'm staying in Colorado for the foreseeable future, I've got enough to be working with without worrying about some theoretical 'destiny' of yours, I owe you nothing and have no interest in hearing whatever the hell you've got to say to me, and if you know _anything _about me, you'll know that I don't take kindly to people who think they know what I should do, so belt up and get out. Is that clear?"

For a moment, 'Doyle' simply stared silently at Spike, most likely trying to think of some other way he could convince the man before him to listen to him, but after a few moments had passed with no sign that Spike was even going to bother blinking, he came to a decision and stepped back, glaring in frustration at the other man.

"Fine," he said, turning away from Spike with a sigh, only to pause and glance back at him. "Enjoy whatever you've got on. You could have been someone-"

"I _am _someone," Spike said bluntly. "You want a champion for some other city, get off your arse and do something about it yourself; world's not going to get anywhere when you keep relying on other people to save it instead of yourself, particularly when I'm busy here already."

As he spoke, a part of him wondered if that had been part of the motivation behind the Scoobies' decision to resurrect Buffy- they felt that they couldn't cut the mustard on their own so they'd brought her back to do it for them-, but he quickly resolved to ignore that thought.

As hard as it had been to reach this point, Buffy, the Scoobies, and Sunnydale were now his past; Vala, SG-1 and the SGC were his future, and he wasn't going to suddenly regress just because things had been simpler when he only had demons and Earth to worry about.

"Whatever," Doyle said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small card, tossing it to Spike with a grim smile. "Call me when you change your mind."

Rolling his eyes, Spike slipped the card into his jacket pocket and promptly forgot about it as his mysterious contact vanished into the crowd of people around the bar.

He'd taken the damn thing to humour the other sod, but he definitely wouldn't be calling that number any time soon; right now, Daniel's absence and whatever he might be enduring in Adria's custody was his top priority.

Maybe once his friend was back on Earth- he'd like the Ori to have been dealt with too, but that was probably setting his sights too high after they'd lost the Sangreal-, _then _he'd look 'Doyle' up…

"Everything all right?" Vala asked, sliding into the seat next to him with a smile.

"Just… some guy; nothing I couldn't handle," Spike said, pushing the whole issue to the back of his mind as he turned to look at Vala. "So, now that you're here, care for a drink?"

As the two continued to converse, all thoughts of the strange meeting he'd just had with the mysterious 'Doyle' ceased to occupy Spike's mind, his attention focused entirely on having a relaxing time with Vala as they considered what they might do next.

If that guy wanted a vampire to help him out with some mess or another in Los Angeles, he could get in touch with Angel; right now, Spike couldn't give a crap one way or the other about what anyone wanted or expected of him in another city on this planet.

He was the vampire with a soul who was a member of SG-1, was currently dating the former host of the Goa'uld Qetesh, and had been declared blood kin to all Jaffa for his role in saving Dakara; with that behind him, and the continuing issue of needing to find wherever Daniel was now, he didn't really need anything else on Earth to worry about.


	49. The Science of Vampires

Disclaimer: _Stargate: SG-1_ and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I _have _put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

"Hey there," Spike said, walking into Sam's laboratory the morning after his date with Vala, all thoughts of his exasperating encounter with the mysterious Doyle forgotten after a highly pleasant evening.

Admittedly, he and Vala still hadn't quite gone… all the way… yet- he'd dived into that too quickly last time on top of everything else, and was just trying to take advantage of the other benefits to their relationship; even their reunion hadn't gone further than taking their tops off-, but he was finding that there was something nice about being able to share conversation with someone without sex having to be a factor in anything. Vala found his tales of Earth history as fascinating as he found some of her stories about life out in space- even if they'd had to be careful about who could hear them and had avoided topics from the more negative parts of their backgrounds-, and they'd even found the time to exchange a few combat tips in case anything came up…

Right now, however, with Vala off on a quick shopping trip with Mitchell as a guide- she might be a member of the flagship team, but she still needed company when going anywhere on Earth until everyone in the command structure was satisfied that she was going to be all right-, and Teal'c attending to a meeting at the Jaffa High Council, Spike was taking the chance to deal with something that he and Sam had discussed during their time away but not had the opportunity to do yet.

"Spike?" Sam said, looking up at the vampire with a slight smile. "Is everything all right?"

"Fine, thanks; had a good night out with Vala last night, anyway," Spike said, smiling reassuringly at the woman who'd been his closest confidant during some of the most difficult weeks he'd ever experienced. "Taking our time, but… well, after the way things went last time I tried dating anyone…"

"I know what you mean," Sam said, smiling slightly at the vampire with a grim manner about her expression. "I've been there myself once or twice; I let my last relationships go too far too fast, and ended up with nothing to show for it but…"

She shrugged, a slightly self-deprecating smile on her face. "Well, you've seen where I am now."

She didn't elaborate, and Spike didn't bother to ask; they might have become better friends during their time in that other world, but there were still some lines you didn't cross, and discussing something like Sam's personal life was definitely up there.

He'd only learned about Danny's wife because the other guy had brought it up himself, and accepted the limited amount of information that he'd been willing to share then; if Sam wanted to keep quiet about her old relationships and how they'd turned out in the end, that was her call and he'd respect it.

"Anyway," Sam continued, looking curiously at Spike, clearly trying to get away from their previous topic and move on to a less personally awkward conversation, "is there something I can help you with?"

"Just… now that we're somewhere where they _don't _mind us looking up stuff that you don't need to know to keep Earth safe, wondered if you'd want to… well, do those tests you mentioned," Spike said, looking curiously at her.

If he'd been asked about this last year, he would have laughed off the idea of him ever essentially volunteering to go through what the Initiative had tried to do again, but after everything that Sam had done to help him keep his secret while they'd been stuck in that other reality, from finding the shield device to giving him blood, it seemed kind of stupid to be against the idea of her taking a quick look at him.

"Well… if you're willing, I wouldn't say no," Sam said, smiling back at him as she walked over to a nearby cabinet and opened a drawer, searching for a moment before she pulled out a file and put it on her desk. "We have some information on file for you already, but obviously it's not much-"

"You had a file about me?" Spike said, looking at her in surprise.

"It mostly just included some basic personal details at first, along with the results of your initial profile when you were being tested to decide if you should be allowed to join SG-1," Sam explained. "I got in touch with Agent Finn and asked him to send over a few of the test results from when the DRI had captured you while I was recovering after my injury- just so that we'd have a better idea of what you'd be capable of when we managed to get your body back, you know-, and there's the results of that MRI scan you went through after we got back to take into account as well, but there's not really much there. Aside from keeping you drugged after you were captured so that they could put that chip in your brain, they didn't have the time to carry out many experiments on you before you escaped, so all they really have is a few notes about the effort it took to bring you in and some speculations about your age compared to other vampires they've studied…"

"In other words, practically zilch," Spike said; he'd glanced over that file during his brief alliance with Adam as part of his attempt to find a way to remove the chip, and had been frustrated at how little information there actually was in it (He might not have understood half of the terms used, but that was enough to know that there was nothing there about the chip and a bunch of random guesstimates about his strength). "So… since you'd be starting from scratch, any ideas where you'd like to kick these tests off?"

"Well… if you wouldn't mind, an obvious approach would be to work out what kind of reaction happens when you come in contact with… holy artefacts," Sam said, looking uncertainly at Spike. "I mean, I know that it hurts, but-"

"When and where?" Spike asked.

"Excuse me?" Sam said, looking at him in surprise.

"Used to practise doing stuff like that with Angelus back when we were both evil as a whole 'macho man' thing- show that we could stand it for longer than the other guy, you know-; after that, you get used to the burns," Spike said, shrugging nonchalantly as he looked reassuringly at her. "Not something I'd like to do long-term, but if you just need a few moments for each… well, I'm game."

"Thanks," Sam said, smiling slightly at Spike. "I already have a few ideas about that- we know that observation of events can affect them on a quantum level, so it's possible that something about the _idea_ of these artefacts being holy affects the way your body responds to them-, but that's only one of the obvious theories, and it might turn out to be wrong anyway…"

"Uh… right," Spike said, nodding in bemused acceptance of her theory.

The science stuff may be over his head, but he _thought _he got the idea behind what she was suggesting; he just wouldn't have the slightest idea how to test for something like that himself…

"Talking of affecting stuff, how about how those Ancients come into play?" he asked, looking curiously at her. "I mean, from what you've said, they're pretty powerful; any way we could see if anything about me compares to what you know about them?"

"Well… it's complicated, but we do have _some _avenues we could explore in that regard," Sam said. "We've managed to carry out a few surveys on Ancients in the past, and that's given us some idea of the energies they generate, but that doesn't exactly help us work out how that energy might affect you…"

"That refer to my soul, or the fact that I'm a walking corpse?" Spike asked.

"A bit of both," Sam said, shrugging as she looked apologetically at him. "Believe me, Spike, I'm at least as interested in working out how… well, everything you are fits in with everything we know about the Ancients… as you are, but there's only so much we can get away with even now. I mean, there's obviously something animating your body, but there's not exactly a practical way for us to analyse how your body compares to someone who's actually been… well, _dead_… for the same amount of time as you…"

"And there's a few issues about you doing that to the body of anyone who snuffed it in the line of duty, right?" Spike asked.

"Aside from anything else, that's just… getting a bit outside of my league," Sam said, looking increasingly awkward at the direction that this conversation had taken. "I'm not exactly a biology expert, after all; I could maybe see if Doctor Lam would be interested in helping us carry out a few tests in that area, but I can't promise anything, particularly since we wouldn't even know what we're looking for. So much of Ancient science is still outside of our understanding even after we've been studying them for the better part of a decade, particularly when it comes to anything relating to their biological knowledge; we've been focusing on analysing their technology. We know that they created a means of containing an energy-based life form that may have been related to their early experiments in Ascension in a kind of prison, but we're still lost for how they managed to make that work…"

She looked thoughtfully at Spike. "I don't suppose you… know any witches-?"

"Who'd be willing to let you test 'em?" Spike asked, looking at her with an apologetic shrug. "Wish I could say 'yes', but can't; only witch I know regularly these days was Red, and I'm not sure I'd be a glowing recommendation to get you to let her test how magic works, given how messed up things got when Captain Cardboard's lot tried to do anything with demons and the fact that my relationship with her was always complicated at best."

"Ah," Sam said, looking awkwardly at Spike. "Things… didn't go well back then, did they?"

"Well, I hit a low point when I tried to betray 'em to Adam to get the chip out, but you've got to keep in mind that I wasn't exactly who I am now back then…" Spike said, looking awkwardly at his friend.

"Spike," Sam said, looking at him with a reassuring smile, "we've trusted Teal'c despite the fact that his first contact with anyone we knew was when he handed Daniel's wife over to the Goa'uld who took her as a host for three years, and Vala's first meeting with us resulted in her trying to steal Earth's first interstellar ship; we're not going to hold your own past against you when you technically weren't… well, _you_, if I understand what you've told me about vampires…"

"Thanks," Spike said, smiling at her.

"You're welcome," Sam replied, grinning back at him before she looked back at her computer and sighed. "We've come so far since we started the program, but sometimes I feel like we're always going to be dealing with Clarke's Law no matter how hard we try to catch up."

"Clarke's Law?" Spike repeated in confusion.

"Arthur C. Clarke," Sam said, looking at Spike for a moment before she recognised that he legitimately didn't know what she was talking about. "He was a science-fiction writer who once wrote that 'Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'; the idea was that science and magic reach a point where the feats they can achieve are so incredible that they're virtually indistinguishable from each other."

"Ah," Spike said. "So… you think that applies here?"

"Well, we know that the Ancients have been able to perform feats that _could _have been considered magic after they Ascended, and the Stargate itself could be considered a 'magic portal' from the right perspective," Sam said with a shrug. "As I said, I have some ideas about how science and magic could come together to fit what we know with the world you know, but there's only so much that we can find out with you as… well…"

"I get it," Spike said, nodding in understanding. "Can't get anywhere when your only source only knows the basics, huh?"

He understood that Sam had been trying to say that he was their only 'subject' with regular contact with magical energy without actually saying anything to suggest that she saw him as an object rather than a person; even if he wouldn't have interpreted it that way after everything they'd been through together, it was… nice… to feel that someone was actually that concerned about his feelings.

"Anyway," Spike said after a moment's awkward silence, deciding to get them back to a topic that they knew they could do something about, "still no news of Daniel, eh?"

"Nothing," Sam said, sighing as she leant against her desk, the slight smile on her face the only sign that she appreciated his attempt to change the subject. "I mean, I think we can all agree that Adria wouldn't have killed him, since he still had Merlin's knowledge and is probably her only real hope of completing the Sangraal, but that doesn't help us work out where he _is_ now. Even if you helped us capture one of the Ori battlecruisers and we managed to destroy another with the Supergate, that still leaves two possible locations for Daniel even if we assume that they wanted to keep him under observation rather than on a converted world, and the fact that they're mobile just makes it worse."

"Ah," Spike said, nodding in understanding.

He'd carried out a few searches for people in the past, but even if most of those hunts hadn't been performed with the intention of killing the target in the end, that didn't help them at this point; he was used to working on the basis that he only had to search a single planet, not an entire _galaxy_, and that was before you took into account the fact that their target could be moving around.

"Life, eh?" he said, out of a lack of anything else to say.

"What else can we do?" Sam sighed. "I've cancelled my planned meeting with Mark to focus on this, and we're _still _no closer to finding what we're looking for…"

"Who's Mark?" Spike asked, looking curiously at Sam.

"My brother," Sam replied, in an automatic tone that suggested this was something she thought Spike would know already.

"_Brother_?" Spike repeated, looking at her in shock. "You never mentioned you had a _brother_?"

Admittedly, he'd never thought to ask, but he supposed that was just part of his time with the Sunnydale group rubbing off on him; virtually everyone he spent time with there had been an only child- Buffy and Tara were the anomalies, but Dawn had come to be an independent member of the group in her own right and nobody really thought about Tara's family after their only appearance-, and Spike had pretty much assumed that the new group were in the same boat…

"We're… well, we're not as close as we were," Sam said, shrugging awkwardly. "He never really forgave Dad for Mom's death-"

"Your mum's dead?" Spike said, looking at her sympathetically after he realised how abrupt the statement had been.

"It was a car accident, back when I was a teenager," Sam said. "Mark always blamed Dad for it because he felt that Dad should have been there to pick her up- he was in the Air Force and was delayed due to an assignment of some sort; I don't really remember what now or if he ever mentioned it-, and after that Mark never really bothered to even try to spend time with him; I only even followed my dad into the military because I wanted to be an astronaut, but with assignments and everything else, we only actually spent any time together after he became Earth's Tok'ra ambassador…"

"Tok'ra?" Spike repeated.

"They're an offshoot of the Goa'uld that we formed an alliance with in the second year of the program," Sam explained. "The Tok'ra are biologically similar to the Goa'uld, but thanks to their original queen suppressing the genetic knowledge she passed to them- one of the main sources of Goa'uld arrogance is the knowledge they artificially receive from their parent passing on the genetic desire to conquer- the Tok'ra voluntarily share control with their hosts rather than dominating them completely. When my dad was dying of cancer, we were able to put him forward as a Tok'ra host for a Tok'ra leader whose original host was dying, with the symbiote healing his cancer and allowing him to act as a liaison between us and them."

"Really?" Spike said, looking at her with a grin before his expression shifted. "How come we haven't called 'em for some info?"

"My dad died two years ago," Sam said, her own expression becoming grimmer at the memory.

"Oh," Spike said, suddenly feeling as inadequate as he'd felt after he'd first heard about Joyce's death. "What happened?"

"Selmak- the Tok'ra he was bonded with- just… became too old, really," Sam said. "Selmak died, and Dad died with him because he didn't have the strength to separate; we still try and maintain contact with the Tok'ra, but with the Ori the threat instead of the Goa'uld… well, there's not much they can really do now."

If there was one thing Spike regretted about having a soul, it was the fact that he now felt so awkward after making a statement like that; it had been so much easier when he didn't give a crap about people's feelings…

"How'd you take it?" he asked uncertainly. "Losing your dad, I mean?"

"How does anything cope with that?" Sam said, looking at him with a slight shrug. "It's been… well, it was difficult, but I think him becoming a Tok'ra helped; we actually spent more time together in the six years he spent as their ambassador than we'd ever spent together in the decade or so before that."

"Something to be happy about, anyway," Spike said, shrugging slightly as he looked at his friend. "Never knew my own dad, really; back when I was alive, it was me and me mum for as long as I could remember, and after… well, Angelus mostly spent his time lording it over me rather than really acting as any kind of parent."

"He was more of an inspiration than a teacher?" Sam asked, curious about this new information about vampire family dynamics despite herself.

"Could say that, yeah; he had to do most of the training because my actual sire was too bloody bonkers to do it herself, but he mainly stuck to the essentials of how not to get killed or attract attention and left me to worry about the fine print of what I wanted to do with myself," Spike said- there wasn't much that he could say about the way things had been with Angelus without discussing the way he'd been when he was evil in more detail than he liked-, before he looked curiously at Sam. "Ever really miss Mark?"

"Well… it comes and goes, really," Sam said. "I mean, I'd like it if we spent more time together- family is family, after all-, but it's not like I don't have a good dynamic with the rest of the team here… actually, when you get down to it, I've probably seen you more since you arrived here than I've managed to see Mark since I joined the program."

"Really?" Spike said. He'd only been at the SGC for a few months; surely Sam couldn't have spent _that _little time with Mark….

Actually, now that he thought about it, if the way she'd acted most of the time he'd been here was any indication, she probably could have; Sam tended to get rather caught up in things, even if it had been a bit more obvious since Daniel was abducted…

"It's the way it works on SG-1; we've spent so long together that… well, when you get down to it, we're more of a family than a team," Sam said, smiling slightly awkwardly at Spike. "I mean, you and I spent all that time together in that other universe, Cam was always a good friend even before he joined the rest of us, Teal'c's been a major part of my life for ten years and could probably be an older cousin rather than just a teammate, Vala… well, she's actually become more tolerable since you got together, if you don't mind me saying so…"

"Hey, after dating a permanent loon for a century, it's good to know I can have a positive influence on someone," Spike said, smiling at Sam before a slightly teasing grin crossed his face. "And what about Danny?"

"Daniel?" Sam repeated.

"Where's he in that?" Spike asked. "I mean, General Jack's probably moved on from whatever role he had then since he isn't regularly here any more, but Danny-boy is…?"

"Daniel is…" Sam began, only to stop talking mid-sentence, suddenly looking awkward about whatever she'd been about to say. "Daniel's… well, we've been friends since SG-1's first mission- I knew I'd like him from the files before I even met him in the first place-, but it's been… well, you know…"

"Yes?" Spike said, unable to stop himself smiling at the sight of Sam being so caught out at such a simple question; there was something slightly amusing at the sight of the woman who had saved Earth through use of advanced alien technology so many times being caught out by such a simple query…

"Well… he's been a good friend since we started working together; let's leave it at that," Sam said, a slight edge to her voice making it clear that she was giving Spike an order rather than a suggestion, the room momentarily silent before the astrophysicist smiled at the vampire. "Anyway, enough talk about what we can't control; let's just… get back to what we can do, shall we?"

"The tests, right?" Spike said, looking at her with a slightly teasing smile; he could tell when someone was trying to awkwardly change the subject easily enough, but after what Sam and him had gone through in that other world, he could allow her some slack for the moment.

"Exactly," Sam said. "We may not be able to work out how to define magic without any… witches… but I did have one or two ideas about how we can get a better feel for _your _physical limitations…"

As the conversation continued, Spike could only smile and nod as Sam began to speculate about what she could do to try and find some scientific perspective on vampires.

It was an unusual way for someone to distract themselves from thinking too much about something they weren't comfortable looking at in greater detail, but if thinking about scientifically defining the supernatural worked for Sam, Spike wasn't going to call her on it just yet.

There'd be time enough for that when Daniel was here to… benefit from her final epiphany first-hand…


End file.
